minnow

I thought of that too, but I don't think Trump's ego allows him to consider that he might die some day.

I was thinking about this. How funny would it be if Trump just... Did nothing? Refused to sign legislation, made zero executive orders, just golfed for four years straight? It's not like he needs to keep people happy so they'll re elect him, he's no longer eligible to run.

The problem is that winning only postponed his problems for four years, and he certainly is already worried about when that time comes. He'll be looking for a solution, and for that he'll need the favor of people in power. So it's amusing to think he might just chill, but I really doubt he will :(

lol

Go on, pigeon. Shit on the chess board some more and blame other people for your own actions. I'm sure if you shit hard enough, nothing will be your fault.

Corruption happens because of consolidation of power. The abolition of money wouldn't prevent that, not even a little. Similarly, anarchy also doesn't prevent corruption, as anarchy doesn't prevent a consolidation of power.

The issue of hoarding money doesn't go away if we abolish money, either. Remember, money is nothing more than a storage of value. If there's no money, a person seeking power can hoard other things of value to create leverage and power over others. This hoarding of value, whether it's in the form of money or not, is what's detrimental to the economy.

And economies are not controlled by money, they're controlled by people as a group.

I ain't suggesting we just go ham with unregulated production

But you just suggested anarchy, so yes you are.

the solution is to have people solve that themselves

Yes yes, by forming committees to gather data, debate solutions, pick a solution, and then enforce their decision. Exactly.

That's government.

Again, because money is just a storage of value, things like inequality will be possible with our without it. Abolishing money wouldn't get rid of inequality.

You're giving me "money is the source of all evil" vibes because a lot of your arguments seem to be coming from ideology as opposed to an actual understanding of what money is. If I may, let me share something seemingly unrelated with you.

A reporter by the name of G.M. Gilbert sat through the Nuremberg trials, and wrote a book called the Nuremberg Diary in which he discusses his experience watching the most heinous Nazis attempt to justify their actions. After making such a study of human kind, he had this to say: “In my work with the defendants I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

Money is an economic tool. It is a thing. It has no inherent power; without people to use it, money just sits still the same as a book or a shoe. As a tool, it enables certain behaviors, but it doesn't create them.

This conversation started as a mere discussion of how an economy would work, but you're taking it in the direction of right and wrong, good and evil. Well, those are human things that existed before money and will exist after money. Money is not the source of evil, and getting rid of it would do more harm to the average human than it would do good.

I get it. Actually kinda nice to see somebody else making a point about the difference between money and currency, usually I'm the one doing that! Almost refreshing lol

Preaching to the choir, man. It's ok.

The irony of this comment is profound.

I'm proud of my choices because I fought to harm as few people as possible.

You're proud of your choice because you believe your hands are clean despite your choice harming the most number of people.

Your hands are not clean. I hope some day you realize it.

I'd say it's not literally impossible regardless, but it would certainly be really REALLY fucking difficult. Like, "only" figuratively impossible. That's just how useful money is; it's profoundly useful.

Anyway, it's all good, no worries. Some people just struggle to wrap their minds around this stuff, what can ya do?

Let's establish a few things.

All forms of economics operate off of needs. Modern economists use the term "demand" but it's the same thing. You seem to be drawing a distinction between "need" as a necessity (high demand) versus "not need" as a luxury (low demand).

I assure you, the bucket analogy works exactly the same with mutual aide aka gift economies as it does with any other form of economics. The fact remains that a geographic area contains a finite amount of resources, representing the total potential economic strength of the region. Some of these resources are renewable, which can help keep that local economy strong, but if the system becomes over stressed by too much being taken out too quickly then that economy is going to be in trouble.

One thing I think you're missing is that a lot of the issues you're highlighting in our discussion aren't the result of a specific form of market activity, but failure of government to properly regulate their economy. Places that rely on tourism, for example, are poor because their governments are captured by capitalists (ie the people who provide the capital to build businesses) who then extract value from said community (taking water from the bucket) without putting enough back in. Governments could prevent that by using their regulatory powers to keep that money in their local economy through a variety of means, such as taxation, welfare programs, controlling what businesses they allow, creating incentives for locally own businesses or businesses of certain types, etc. That they don't do this is a failure of government, not of economics.

I also want to reiterate that the use of money isn't mutually exclusive to gift economies (or mutual aide as you seem to insist on calling it). Money is a facilitator of trade, a storage of value. Economies are the means by which value is moved and used. If you give me a sandwich today because I'm hungry, and I give you $5 tomorrow so you can buy a soda, we've both participated in gift economy market activity. I do this all the time with my friends; I refuse to keep track of who gives who what, because we all help each other as needed and I trust them to help me in return. At work, I sometimes bring snacks for everyone, and one of my coworkers sometimes gives me a $20 too help pay for those snacks. That's gift economy activity, but with money.

The money just makes things easier. So much so that non-money currency was invented several thousand years before money was invented. Even when people only practicing gift economy, they still found benefit in having a highly mobile, durable storage of value.

"You better stop selling weapons to Israel so that Iran can steamroll you, or we're going to throw the largest and most powerful country to the fascists"

I wouldn't take that insanity seriously either. And that's why I'm getting downvoted by a bunch of insane failures of anti fascism. Which is fine, I'm only frustrated at your refusal to take responsibility for your failure, which no amount of "they made me do it" will absolve you from; you're responsible for your actions, nobody else.

Dunno who downvoted you because this is a valid question.

Now I'm just a hobbiest and my interest is more about the form money takes than the economics. That said I'll do my best to answer.

Imagine each community as a bucket, and the economic strength of that community as water in the bucket. As long as the water in the bucket is moving, it will stay fresh and healthy, but if it stops moving it becomes stagnate and unhealthy. Movement represents economic activity.

Taking water from one bucket to another increases water movement, which is good. However, taking too much water from a bucket to another bucket, without putting enough water back in from elsewhere, creates the risk of that one bucket will get too low on water. Not enough water and the water can't move, and it begins to stagnate. So, each bucket has an incentive to keep a certain amount of water in it. When we're not moving water between buckets, it's simply not a concern. But when we are, we have to be careful. Now, if all the buckets are small then it gets real easy to see when a bucket is getting low and to do something about it. However, as the buckets get bigger it gets harder and harder to judge if there's enough water and if it's moving enough. Smart people start saying things like "we should keep track of how much water we need, how much we giving to other buckets, and how much we receive from other buckets."

If water in our metaphor is economic strength, each drop of water has a certain about of economic value. This is where currency becomes helpful. If I come from City A and I have some shells that are acting as a storage if economic value, then I can trade those shells at City B for something of theirs with economic value, say, a cow hide. I've just taken "water" from "bucket" City B, but using the shells I've simultaneously given them "water" from "bucket" City A. This (assuming equal and fair) trade keeps the water level in any particular bucket from getting too low or too stagnant. It also makes it easier for people to monitor the water and take action to fix any problems.

So, a small secluded village practicing a gift economy all by itself has little to worry about. But whole nations practicing non-stop trade between each other risk the possibility of deficit trading, and they have an obligation to their people to keep their economy strong and moving. Money makes this A LOT easier.

That said, gift economy is still practiced today from time to time all around the world. You'll even encounter it in the poorer parts of America where people have the "neighbors help neighbors" attitude. It's just unfortunate and ironic that people in those places are usually the type to be all in on capitalism, and would get upset if you told them they weren't practicing capitalism amongst themselves. But that's an education issue.

I study the history of money and pre-money economies as a hobby (oh god I'm such a fucking nerd) and you're 100% spot on. Before coins were invented, societies used ingots of metal. Before that, they used shells and beads. The first currency was used about ten thousand years ago (iirc).

And yeah, in the times and places throughout history where there wasn't an available currency, people practiced what was called a "gift economy." It works great on the small scale, and it still pops up in some communities even today. But on the large scale? Moving between cities, regions, and countries? Some form of currency is an absolute must.

The problem is that for anything to be used as currency, whether it's shells or coins, there has to be a critical mass that's the minimum to sustain an economy. That's where the hoarders (aka billionaires) are such a problem. As billionaires suck up currency, governments risk having the available currency fall below the critical mass. So, they make more. Which causes inflation.

So the billionaires really REALLY are the problem.