This point is valid, but the minimum wage is not solely to blame, as you point out. The government subsidies to big business are a big problem. Better to get rid of corporate welfare than people welfare. Those with large, unchecked market power create a huge number of problems.
The reason why Puritans got rich or the U.S. for that matter, was that the possibilities were endless. There were hundereds of millions of acres of land, there was the need for transportation, there was the need for manufacturing things. Then, after industrial revolution, cities were being built and for that, manpower was needed. There was, simply speaking, job. This might sound a bit crazy but colonising another planet as was the case with America might help the world's economy since the capitalist mode has been running eversince.
Manic profit-chasing isn't the only way a society can function. Money isn't intrinsic to trade or to quality of life. All those are conveniences that were advantageous at the time they were developed, but everything has its use-by date, and so do money and capitalism. Sooner the people try to avoid thinking about the economy, society, future, in terms of current rules of capitalism, sooner we'll be able to evolve into a more wise, environmentally friendly, humane and prosperous species. Holding onto the past, even if it's destroying our society right now through total economic collapse and theft on a grand scale (banks, corporation welfare, wars nobody but big business wants to fight etc),to me seems the least reasonable thing to do.
This is what we, the hoi polloi realize, not the ones who pull the strings of economy and the world. But you're right, I agree with you. I'm afraid this is a utopia.
I'm not sure I understand how your post applied to what Liz said either, but since she replied to you I'll assume it's my comprehension that is at issue.
I think I asked you once before and I don't recall the answer, what do you see replacing money? Now I'll add another question, how does wanting something cause to to evolve? Evolution is a biological proces. It also happens to be very slow in humans.
I really really wish I could believe something like this. I just don't have this much faith in the human race as a whole.
[MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION]: Humans made bigger leaps before. I'm sure we'll do it, when the time is right. Nothing can stop evolution
[MENTION=35110]jazzabel[/MENTION]: I love the optimism! I really do. I suppose with things like slavery being outlawed, and other such vast social changes happening in comparatively short spaces I guess the same thing could happen again. The Christianization of the UK is another example I can think of of another sweeping social change in a comparatively short space of time. I hope you are right anyway.
[MENTION=2124]Lemex[/MENTION]: It's easy to lose perspective in todays world, it's like 'the end-of-the-world-is-neigh' on steroids, everybody's doing it. But I spent years speaking to people about their deepest, most fundamental beliefs, hopes, fears, and one thing I learned is that we all want the same thing. Except for psychopaths who want the exact opposite thing. But they are very rare, and can't ultimately stop the progress of the society for very long. I reflected on various subjects in this context, biology, anthropology, history, and this dynamic appears to have been the same since humans began. That gives me hope
I don't think we'll be able to function without money -- it makes things too convenient. We'll always need a medium of exchange because those with a supply don't always match up 1:1 with those who have the demand of any product. That is, there isn't a "zero-sum" type of way to meet everyone's needs. And since having money gives one a certain type of power, there will always be people who want a lot of it.
[MENTION=38553]chicagoliz[/MENTION]: "Without money" doesn't mean "without means of exchange". I like the idea of credits. Every person has credits, awarded automatically at birth and they're renewed at agreed rate (obviously, it'd take a lot of work to work out this scheme, so I have no details, this is just an idea) which are enough for ordinary life. Gaining additional credit would be strictly proscribed, and there'd be a cap that would prevent anyone from stealing or amassing vast amounts. The property would also have to be expressed in credits and cap put in place, to get rid of feudalism once and for all. The idea behind removing money from the system is that money is currently extremely unequally distributed and it would be extremely hard to make those who have loads to give it up. No, we need a new system of exchange, whatever it is, that will be improved because we learned from our mistakes with money. If you think about it, what we are buying is a product of people's work and creativity, it's not produced by money. And in my experience, people do what they love even if they aren't paid. That is, it's been proven that people will work as a natural need. So if you removd money overnight, most people would still turn up for their jobs and if, after a while, they see that the have acess to everything they need (for most people that'd be more than they had before) they'd carry on. The only people who would be instantly without jobs are money lenders and money speculators. I'm sure they can requalify, after a period of financial rehabilitation and greed removal therapy. But a lifetime ban on working in economics. Many centuries ago, someone came up with a bunch of coins and tried to exchange it for useful stuff, like seeds and cattle, and people probably thought they were mad, and that the idea will never work. And look what happened. All it takes is wanting a change. World without money? Perfectly possible!
I hate to break it to you, but that's money. It doesn't matter what you call it. Credits for the exchange of goods or services ('a means of exchange') is money. It doesn't matter how it is controlled or limited. Money is just a way of swapping the things we make and do more easily. We don't do it for the money. We do it for the things we can get with the money. Money isn't the problem. It's wanting those things we get with money. Remove money and it just becomes more difficult to exchange those things people 'passionately' make. But the desire for things and pleasures remain. Money is just a tool. Also, most people today are not doing what they want, so I'm pretty sure 90% of people will stop with their jobs in an instant if they could. I would. Most jobs are not needed anyway. But then we'd have seven million writers churning out endless novels and no-one picking up trash. Most jobs are only done because there is a reward, not a passion. We do them because we need to do something in order to get food, so indirectly we are exchanging our work for that of the farmer. Money only helps that exchange. Yes, remove money and nothing changes.... except HOW we exchange those same things and services. Your 'idealized' world of people naturally following their passions seems like an exciting Nirvana, but it's one we can achieve with money. Money is just a tool that we're just not very good at using. Regardless, it only works in small scale communities with the right balance of needs vs people to fill those needs. You don't want six people who like building and only one that likes fishing. Soon you'll need more people to fish. People will need to do things they don't want to do to keep the community going. You'll tell the person who volunteers to fish they can have a bigger share for doing more work. Suddenly you get reward. But they don't want more fish. They want more nuts. Ok. You tell them to give the extra fish to the person that has the nuts... and soon we have money. A balanced community can and does work, but in a simple community and not a complex society. War and money and trade were born from these ideal communities. I've had lengthy discussions with people trying to set up these ideal communities and wanted to be part of it back in my hippie days, but it has just as many flaws as a complex society with open exchange. Equality was part of communism. It didn't work because reward is a strong motivator. Money is just a tool. It was created because a few bits of shell or rock or stone or metal was easier to carry than 56 sheep. Removing money will not remove the desire or need for reward.
[MENTION=45548]Selbbin[/MENTION]: I am familiar with the argument you are presenting, however I think it's a typical "in-the-box" thinking that, if all humans were prone to it, we'd still be carrying fire in our pockets because what's the point of creating a lighter? Bottom line is, until people don't get out of their intellectual box, the new ideas and societal improvements don't occur. Visionaries and idealists are a laughing stock, as everyone else is suffering in a bad, horrible system but nobody "can imagine" how things can be better. Just look through the history and see how many awful ideas became thousand year old traditions, and how, until those traditional approaches changes drastically, the society didn't progress. We live in an age where technological progress is occurring at a light speed rate, but our psychological evolution is as slow as it was when they burned Galileo, when they forbid women to have any rights, when the rich didn't give a toss about 5 year olds prostituting themselves on the street for a crumb of bread. And don't even start me on what hunter-gatherers thought about the nutters who fantasised of taming animals and irrigating the land so they can grow crops and live in one place.
Because it's easier. The same reason we made money. I don't think it's visionary to aspire to a culture we have already had and, in some parts of the world, still have.
Yeah, but don't you think money can be analogous either with fire itself OR with a lighter? I propose that barter succeeded lack of barter, because it was easier, money succeeded barter, because it was easier but also it was an improved version that lacked all or most of the inherent inconveniences and technical faults of the previous model. Now, money is no longer adequate to fulfil it's purpose, truthfully, it's been declining in function for at least 100 years, so what's wrong with improving on it? If you can't imagine what else instead of money, I'm sure a lot of people couldn't imagine the lighter or money, before each was invented and made functional, so they could see the advantages of it for themselves. I am not saying the credits idea is what should replace money, I'm just saying that it's perfectly possible to replace money with something more fit for purpose, now that we know the pitfalls of it.
The credit system sounds fun. Everyone born with X amounts of credit but it is still money. It reminds of the Justin Timberlake film No Limits if anyone has seen it. Everyone born with a built-in time limit and they can buy and sell, or earn more minutes. Talk about wide open to corruption and yet an even worse situation than money ever brought. With the stakes much higher the prizes are better than ever - greed will always win out.
[MENTION=52161]erebh[/MENTION]: It isn't the same as money as long as it isn't pooled in a few people's hands whilst vast majority has to fight over crumbs. Credits idea is that everyone is born with equal amount, which is more than enough for comfortable living. If education, childcare, healthcare, public transport etc are all free (maintained by governments with budgets currently devoted to corporation welfare and war) the amount is arbitrary, but much less than we need now. And a small percentage of that can be "earned" on top (20%?) but having more than a certain amount (more that ?50% of natal credit) in our possession is evidence of corruption and theft, and thus illegal. This would mitigate the scenarios you mentioned. The corporations would have to be similarly regulated. Add up all the money that's available on planet Earth (approximations based on real value). Then calculate how much of it is in the hands of people vs big corporations. Than have a look at the Forbes list. Notice that the richest families aren't even mentioned there. Tally up the approximate amount of the total that's in their hands. I've done this and was shocked with how much money each family could have, if the few weren't hogging so much. Credits would prevent this hogging, or at least it would occur on a vastly smaller scale, which is still an improvement.
what happens if you run out of credits and are too sick to work? How would health insurance work? Would we have a social system to look after the young and elderly and infirm? Who is going to look after all of this? A govt? I liked the idea until the govt are going to run it - back to square 1...
[MENTION=52161]erebh[/MENTION]: I can't believe my iPad died just before I sent the comment! Sorry if this now is briefer. Ok, credits don't run out, they are replenished constantly. You don't have to work for money, but if you want more luxuries or to feel useful, stimulated, socialised, fulfilled, then you'll most likely be pursuing a career. Medical care is completely free, as is education. You're sick - go see a doctor. You want to be a doctor - go study medicine, if you pass, welcome to the team. Everyone is a subject to credit law, the prime minister, the king, the pauper, doctor, cleaner, teacher, florist, scientist, corporation CEO everybody but also the corporation itself. We would use technology to it's utmost potential to do as many unpleasant and dangerous jobs which are now reserved only for the most desperate people. People's working week can be drastically reduced if there are lots of people who want to do the job, in such a way that everyone has a job. Some limitations may need to be placed and no system is perfect, but there are waiting lists for jobs and reasonable working conditions everywhere (workplace conditions are seriously regulated because they've been shown to be perfect situations for exploiting people, so we need to be really vigilant about this). Tiny moving costs enable much bigger flexibility than we have today. Internal assessments of competence can also be used to wisely distribute work and responsibility according to the individual worker's abilities and energies, so if someone wants to be a radiologist but they want to work 2 days a week and they aren't very good, they get to report x-rays, leaving more exciting stuff to more able doctors, for example. Suddenly, the world cares about quality of work, not about quantity of money. And the fact that there are no private hospitals means that even the prime minister, and a King and a CEO and their kids, will end up in the same place as you and I, so it's in their interest to make sure corruption doesn't eat up this idea as well. The government as we know it today would obviously have to evolve into something more compatible with this system. Evolution needs time so it would need to be a delicate transition. I like to think about it in terms of what kind of government would we need to make this work, rather than what is possible with the style of government we currently have. Remember, anyone is subject to criminal prosecution if it's shown that they own, or spend, more than legally acceptable limit. I think most politicians we have today would lose interest quickly and re-qualify. I can tell you this much - some kind of centralisation would be necessary for administration of the planet, and severe limitation of individual power and any kind of monopoly would have to be at the core of it. And everyone would have to be on the same page. This can't succeed in isolation, this can only succeed as the worldwide change.
