RE: The End Of Money: Boldly Going To A Post Economic Era
As i was reading this post i kept looking for where money stopped being needed. And all that was offered was some hand waving.
If you want tons of hydrogen and oxygen to send something into space, you have to go acquire it. Today, money is a way to get someone else to acquire it for you. Without money, you are left with trying to ask someone to spend part of their time doing what you want done.
And, why would they do that? They would do that only if they feel they are getting rewarded somehow. Or, barter by another name.
A moneyless society will not happen like any of these sci-fi authors have written about. Because, they have never, ever gotten rid of the reason money exists.
When you are a small community, you share your windfalls. The crops are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. There is nothing in the spring, and a huge amount in the fall. So, one tends to share their zucchini harvest. And then, someone shares the meat when the slaughter a cow. (without freezers, no one could even eat part of a cow before it goes rancid)
So, in this small community you see who's pulling their weight, and who shares stuff with you.
BUT, when the community becomes larger than 100-300 people, you can't keep track. And so money is used as markers to the sharing.
Money is a tracker for how much effort you put out.
(of course banks have taken advantage of this)
So, in the future, we will have super-money. Money that is much better at tracking effort, good-will, time, need, etc.
We will not have a future without money.
In fact, i believe the future may be straight barter, with computers doing all the sorting to get everyone what they want.
@builderofcastles,
Prescient point. It's called Dunbar's Number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Over it, groups start to require police forces, courts and other institutions of state. And ... money.
Imagine you own a Mercedes that I want to buy, but I don't have any money. So, I offer to mow your lawn instead. The disparity in the value exchange means that I'll have to do a lot of mowing and, unless your back yard is the size of a hayfield, it will take years to pay off my debt. Worse, imagine that you live in a condo and don't have a lawn at all. Or, what if I'm a scofflaw? What if my lawnmower breaks and I don't have the money to repair it?
The terms and conditions of the transaction becomes so cumbersome that it makes commerce all-but-impossible. Now multiply this out for my buying meat from the butcher and shoes from the shoemaker. This is why barter doesn't work for anything but the simplest of transactions.
Now imagine that you're the CEO of Daimler-Benz, the manufacturer of Mercedes automobiles. You've got thousands of suppliers and millions of customers in over 100 countries. Without a universally accepted unit of exchange (money) to act as an intermediary between parties, how could you ever orchestrate who owes who what? You couldn't, it would be a nightmare.
Now recall that there are millions of companies worldwide.
The "concept of money" was one of the greatest inventions of mankind as it allowed the value of labor and resources to be divorced from individuals, and created an abstract method of "value transfer" that was independent of space and time.
Money, in whatever form, is going nowhere.
Quill
I expect money to evolve.
Right now it is a sorta measure for work and materials applied.
I expect new forms of money to be a measure of good will, patience (or waiting / time value), etc.
In fact, you could say that people's seller rating in ebay / amazonia is a form of "money".
So, i believe, in the future, we will see these things expressed as easily as we express money in a bank account today.