Question

[andrewducker]

I'm engaged in discussion elsewhere about money, social systems, etc.  I'm maintaining that:

Money is an abstraction for the value of property. The only way to remove it will be to get rid of the concept of property. The problem is that this leaves you with no way to encourage people to produce things or perform services. Which is fine if you only want to do things with/for your friends, but unless you personally know a farmer, a doctor, a dentist, etc., etc. who are willing to do favours for you, you're going to need _some_ kind of incentive.

Now, I know that there are a variety of social systems - I'm wondering if anyone has managed a non-monetary system with a large group of people for any length of time - is the 'problem' of incentives surmountable, or do-able in any other way?  I've certainly not encountered anything which seemed even vaguely credible.  There's the fudge of socialism - where some of the money is taken away and used for the good of all (and I'm in favour of this, obviously - I like the NHS), but is there a true alternative that's actually liable to work in reality?

Comments

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Bartering, which I guess is what all societies used before money was introduced, but it'd be a right pain nowdays.

Money can also be an abstraction for your time - you don't always get something that could be called property when you pay for something.

And your time could also be an alternative to paying taxes. The fairest tax system would be where everyone worked for the government for a set amount of time - let's say a day a week for argument's sake. I can't see it catching on though...

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Don't know about the real world, but I've read a fictional treatment of a non-monetary social system - Voyage from Yesteryear , by James P Hogan. Ummm ... too tired to properly summarise, but it is an entertaining read.

[broin.livejournal.com]

"I'm wondering if anyone has managed a non-monetary system with a large group of people for any length of time"

Historically, yes. Barter lasted a lot longer than Capitalism has. :)

[code-delphi.livejournal.com]

This can only be a practical reality if the infrastructure produces everything that anyone could possibly want. People then do whatever amuses them; there's no need for incentive, because no one is choosing to do more than they choose.

Of course, such an infrastructure would have to consist of robot or genginered labour, presumably coupled with limitless power and resources. That'd require fusion, and probably access to sources outside Earth. Oh, and there'd have to be enough room for all, which means practical, cheap interstellar travel to allow colonisation. Hmmm, that means effective terraforming.

I'm not holding my breath. Without all that, your argument is unassailable: human nature would defeat any other system.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's trivially easy for any post-scarcity economy (such as post replicator Star Trek or Iain M. Banks' Culture) and not particularly difficult for any small scale society (one the level of large tribes or Chiefdoms, where the maximum population is several thousand. In such a society, barter combined with a strong sense of social obligation (which is inevitable in a society where everyone knows everyone else to at least a minor degree) makes currency irrelevant. However, in a large, diverse society with many scarce resources, I see no alternative to currency.

[drplokta]

There can be no such thing as a post-scarcity economy. Even in the Culture, Banks has its inhabitants briefly reinventing money in order to trade concert tickets, in Look To Windward. But in fact, there are very many items of this kind -- tickets for events, land in desirable locations, antiques, personal services -- whose availability cannot be increased by technological means and that cannot be substituted. In fact, we're nearly there now -- items in that class constitute over half of the economy.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

There can be no such thing as a post-scarcity economy.

What's the dictionary definition? I mean, the concept of a society where everyone's basic needs in terms of food, water, housing, monster trucks etc are all provided automatically and for free is plausible, if perhaps not very likely. But I agree that such a society would not negate the need for currency. On the other hand, what you could try to do is decouple currency from property, and try to associate it with, say, reputation instead (ref: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom). This may or may not solve some of the problems currently associated with having money,

[adders.livejournal.com]

While money may have started off as an abstraction of property, current workplace / lifeplace balance theory shows it has become more an abstraction for time.

We use money as much to reclaim time as we do to obtain property these days.

[andrewducker]

I had, indeed, forgotten about the service industry.

Which is odd, as I partially work in one :->

[adders.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Most people making those arguments fall into the trap of equating money with physical objects. In fact, many of our financial transactions today are based as much on time as on property. When we buy a DVD we buy the time the people involved in making the film invested as much as we do the shiny piece of silver. When we go out for a meal we buy the time of the chefs and the waiting staff.

No, as some people will be more skilled than others, their time will be more scare. This doesn't matter in,say,movies. But it does matter in the theatre,or interior design,or original artworks.

You can't completely eliminate scarcity.

[andrewducker]

True - and in some ways, up until the removal of the Gold Standard in 1971. up until that point you could consider all transactions as barter, as swapping money was effectively bartering gold.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Ah, no help from me I'm afraid. Assume a reductionist answer that references game theory along the way.

People are not special cases - don't get seduced into giving human affairs more significance that they have just because you happen to be one (sort of!).