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I mean... money does matter. It matters to the individual because it is how they pay their bills, and it matters to all of humanity because it is how we are able to take coordinated action despite the lack of any central organizer.
Taking money out of the picture would also take bills out of the picture. And humanity absolutely has the ability to coordinate action without money at least as well (if not better) than how it is now, the only difference is it would be harder for individuals to be the sole coordinator. Money, and who has it, is our current central organizer and will continue to burn the planet if we fail to take away its power.
That's a huge claim, you need to support that.
Not that huge of a claim, especially when now is so chaotic and dysfunctional. Here's a nonexhaustive list of moneyless economies (obviously with varying degrees of feasibility)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy
~edit: wording~
The huge claim is the present tense, "has the ability". It's not a huge claim to say that humanity has the potential to one day transcend money, but that wasn't the claim. Humanity has a long road before that's possible, it does not presently have the ability to continue to function if we just snapped our fingers tomorrow and eliminated money.
An "ability" is not a vague notion bolstered by historical curiosities. An "ability" involves a detailed, immediately actionable plan that can be implemented in the modern economic landscape without destroying crucial productivity.
Resources have to be allocated. People need to accept the resource allocation method in order to contribute their labor to do things that must be done. Money is an imperfect solution. Eliminating money leads to reinventing it (e.g. "energy credits"), reverting to less efficient models (e.g. barter), developing a central planning body that replaces wealth corruption with administrative corruption, or widespread social loafing where nothing gets done.
Without an actual plan of implementation that gains the trust of the workers, there is no "ability", merely aspiration.
I disagree with a few points you bring up, but beyond those, it sounds like your biggest problem with my statement is in the semantics. I don't find that to be very useful when obviously the logistics of such a system are complicated enough to warrant a whole doctorate degree. Comments on social media between strangers with no verifiable education isn't really the place to harp on precise wording and definitions. I think it's possible for humanity to coordinate without money. Is that better? Or do you still disagree?
Semantics are how we communicate ideas. If you change the semantic content, you change the idea.
Depends on what you mean by possible. At some point in the remote future? Sure, I agree. At the present time? I disagree. We're not there yet, and you can't just snap your fingers and change the fundamental beliefs, and logistics administration, of 8 billion people overnight. Best case scenario that's a multi-generational endeavor.
We can get there one day, we can't outlaw money tomorrow.
Words are how we communicate ideas, and words are messy and can mean different things in different cultures and contexts (and a lot of times people use them incorrectly). Semantics matter in science and academia when you're trying to be precise for the historical record so things don't get misinterpreted by people who usually don't have the ability to ask you what you mean by "has the ability" or "humanity". A very broad statement I might add. Too broad of a statement for most academic literature.
An early step in the process of ending our reliance on money is broadly accepting that it isn't a necessity. I never claimed that that kind of global shift would happen overnight, and I don't find it useful to use that kind of prescription to undermine the concept unless your goal is solely to undermine the concept.
Semantics matter in every attempt at communicating information.
If I say humans "have the ability to fly", it is important to specify that I mean they have the potential to secure the means to fly, not that they can actually fly themselves. That difference in meaning is the difference between a person booking a flight, and jumping off a roof to their surprised death.
A much more important early step is securing an alternative to money. Money is not really the problem, it's just a framework for resource allocation. Any other framework is going to have its own vulnerabilities, like the administrative corruption in central planning, or the kludginess of barter, or the social loafing of spontaneous cooperation. And none of those alternative frameworks prevent unofficial currencies from popping up.
Ignoring these issues doesn't make them go away, and wanting to address them at the outset does not undermine the concept, any more than acknowledging that humans cannot naturally fly undermines the development of aircraft.
Again, context matters. If someone reads an internet comment that says "humans have the ability to fly" and proceeds to jump off a building, that's on them. Doesn't change the veracity of the statement. If you would like to question how the statement was true, hopefully the commenter would be willing to elaborate with some examples (like how I sent you a list of economic theories that don't involve money). The people who thought that humans could fly went to work inventing things to make it true. The people who didn't think that were eventually proven wrong.
Also again, a full economic theory is way too complicated to get into the details in this context. I can say that my favorite theory is a library economy, but I would rather those logistics be discussed in a time and place with people that were positioned to make it happen.
But yes, I do believe that money is the biggest problem. I think it leads to more corruption than most other frameworks for resource allocation.
And I responded by pointing out that all those systems which could be implemented today reduce to barter, central planning, incentiveless systems that result in social loafing, or reinventing money with extra steps (e.g. energy certificates, local currencies, etc.). The others require some significant material change to function (e.g. near universal automation).
The vast majority of them invented things that did not make it true, and many of them died testing those inventions. I'm not saying we can't develop a moneyless society, but I don't think that's something you can flippantly say we have "the ability" to do, when our current state of development is more like Icarus than the Wright Brothers.
That's exactly the source of my disagreement. Trivializing the work left to be done does nothing but encourage people to jump off buildings en masse with cardboard wings.
I disagree. Central planning is extremely vulnerable to corruption, mutualism is extremely vulnerable to corruption, barter is extremely vulnerable to corruption, none of the alternatives listed prevent black market currencies, which are extremely vulnerable to corruption. Yes, money has flaws, but if none of the available alternatives are less flawed, then disposing of money accomplishes nothing of importance.
The effort still required to make any alternative viable cannot be trivialized. The flaws of alternatives cannot be trivialized. It's not enough to have an idea, that idea actually has to work in the real world. I have the same goal as your, but trivializing the difficulties involved does not help.
We have to decide we want to do it before we can figure out how to do it. If we allow the current trend to continue, we'll never get the opportunity to try out any of those alternatives. There is a definitive plan to live in a stateless classless moneyless society, it's called socialism. It has an express goal of moving beyond a moneyed system. Focusing on how long and complicated the path could be is a great way to keep people disinterested in making any change whatsoever. I'm not saying you need to hide that part of it, but the way to inspire change is by keeping focus on what the goal is, and making it seem like it's possible because it is.
Also it's very easy to just say "____ is extremely vulnerable to corruption" to dismiss the whole idea, but you're also just doing the same generalization I did but in a negative direction. Well money is extremely vulnerable to corruption and we have more evidence of that than most any other system.
Agreed. But that's "should" language, not "can" language.
The last time something called socialism got widespread, it too succumbed to horrible corruption.
Ignoring how long and complicated the path to aircraft could be is a great way to get people jumping off buildings with cardboard wings.
The Incan economy isn't going to painlessly scale to a globalized society. Pretending that it's a rational alternative just makes you look foolish, which does more to hinder progress than soberly acknowledging the difficulty of the problem.
Yes. Every system of resource and labor allocation is vulnerable to corruption. Some people are greedy, and no matter what system you devise to allocate resources and labor duties, some people will figure out how to manipulate it for personal advantage.
You claim to want the same outcomes as me, but your method of naysaying and picking at every detail will mostly lead to people disengaging with the conversation entirely. That's actively harmful to the movement's progress.
Ignoring the most basic attention to detail is much worse than over-attention to detail. While they deserve consideration, optics are secondary to functionality. The most popular plan in the world is useless if it doesn't actually function.
Engagement is nothing without substance. You're putting the cart before the horse.
You are well beyond "most basic", and also I disagree. Over-attention to detail is a very easy way to make nothing happen at all, which is currently killing people. I'm not the person who's going to map out a detailed plan to get to that society, nor do I think an internet comment section is the place to do that. Especially when what we're talking about is global revolution which absolutely necessitates broad engagement with many many people who don't know all the details and really don't need to. This is a very appropriate context to be talking in broad strokes. And if you want to wait for some perfect plan with every detail in exactly the right place, you'll be waiting until the heat death of the universe.
No, I'm not. You've provided nothing except some vague allusions to libraries and the Incas. That is not even the most basic level of detail.
Under-attention is a very easy way to make things worse in your recklessness. You think people are dying now, what do you think of going to happen when the entire global economic system is plunged into chaos?
And who is disengaged when discussing details? You think someone like that it's going to be useful at all in a revolution? Under-attention will scare off practical detail oriented people in exchange for the vague approval of lazy dullards. Lazy dullards are not useful to the cause at this stage. Practical detail oriented people are. Under-attention hurts more than over-attention.
If a worldwide network of like-minded people of various specialties and expertise isn't the place, where is?
You're still putting the cart before the horse. Engagement isn't enough, you actually have to have the plan first before you worry about engagement. I see no plan. You can't have a successful global revolution without a plan, no matter how much engagement you have.
You're not taking in broad strokes, "Money bad" isn't useful engagement. You have to pair that with what's good, or you look like a foolish child with cardboard wings.
Again, not talking about a perfect plan, just a plan. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be practical. "Money bad" is not a plan, "the Incas" is not a plan. I'm not going to encourage jumping off the roof base on stitch vague notions, and I won't sit by while fools do.
Figure out what the replacement is before you dismantle the global economy.
We have to agree "money bad" before making a plan to move beyond it.
My talking about about the Incas and different non-monetary systems isn't me trying to make a plan, it's trying to show the possibility of the concept.
We're never going to pull off a revolution without numbers. And only giving air to the "practical detail oriented" people while name calling the rest is a great way to make sure you never get those numbers.
And yes, there is a plan that I did mention, socialism. But that's not how you phrased your initial engagement with my comment.
Yes, but that's not the thing you said that I disagree with:
Replace "ability" with "potential" and I agree with you, but as written this is misleading. It assumes the planning has concluded, and a new system is ready to be implemented. This is not the case.
Either "socialism" refers specifically to the USSR's plan, in which case we've seen that fall to corruption, or it refers to a more general concept, in which case that's more of an ideology than a plan. At best it's a general roadmap, but it's not policy by a mile.
Socialism is not immune to corruption. No matter what system you use, people will find the loopholes and vulnerabilities and blind spots. You're just trading billionaires for bureaucrats. Even in a direct democracy, they'll start podcasts to sway public opinion. They'll steal from library economies, they'll loaf in spontaneous mutualism.
You cannot eliminate this element, you can only change its form.
If you're asking what I think the best way forward is, please just ask that from the beginning. My answer might've been that I've been working with the PSL and think they have a pretty good idea of a socialist America. Instead we're bickering over the definition of "ability".
Otherwise, you're just arguing for the status quo that everyone hates.
I find it extremely ironic that you worry about scaring people off with practical details, but see no conflict in promoting a party which liberally uses poisoned leftist language. McCarthyism happened, the Cold War happened. Accurate terminology has been turned into boogeyman words.
The average American hears "socialism", and they think of gulags and breadlines and authoritarianism. I'm not saying that's an accurate conception, I'm just saying that's the consequence of a century of anti-left propaganda.
If you're worried about alienating people, start with your messaging. I fully believe that a socialist party will be substantially more successful if they embrace patriotic, market based, Christian language.
It's not socialism in the workplace, it's making every worker a stakeholder. It's not UBI, it's an investment in Americans. We're not sissy bleeding heart libcucks obsessed with handouts, we're spreading Jesus' message of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and embracing immigrants as we were immigrants in Egypt.
If you care about the persuasive content of the message, then care about it. Don't clutch your pearls when people want their plans to be actual plans because that might scare people off, then push a party using poisoned language.
I don't oppose the stated goals of the PSL, but you have to realize that, in America at least, socialist vocabulary is more divisive and alienating than sober, pragmatic tactics.
I find it extremely ironic that someone who seems to have such strong opinions on communication is so bad at. You bring up not awful and not unheard of points about using conservative language to draw people to the left. That could've been a much more productive discussion.
The biggest reason I never told you what my plan was is because you never asked for it. The initial point I was making was about how money is bad and we don't need it. Then you attacked my phrasing. You could've even briefly corrected my phrasing and then gone on to talk or ask about what the path to get there is. Instead you ranted about what tense I was using and how other economic systems don't work.
The way you've communicated with me makes it seem like your goal is alienating people.
I didn't know how many more ways I can say the same thing Even the PSL website outlines solutions which still involve money.
Don't say things that may lead to swaths of people jumping off metaphorical roofs. Take responsibility for your message, and refine it when problematic. Be precise.
And above all jump down the throat of anyone who doesn't enunciate a point perfectly, it should be our goal to discourage engagement as much as possible /s
More like correct those who enunciate point so imperfectly that it becomes a different, harmful point.
That's a big stretch for a fucking tense. And when correcting is necessary, it should be done in such a way that actually strengthens the foundation of the point, assuming you agree with the goal. Otherwise what you're trying to build will never come to fruition.
Which is what I did when I suggested replacing "ability" with "potential".
And frankly, I don't think that point needs to be strengthened right now. I don't think abandoning money is a valuable goal at this point in time. Once again, money is not the problem, greed and corruption are the problem. Getting rid of money doesn't solve the problem, it just shuffles and transforms it.
Abandoning money is a goal for the road from socialism to communism, not the road from fascism to socialism. Flooding the dialogue with ill-timed calls to action is more dilutive to building change than critical analysis.
Your verbose tear down of my use of "ability" seemed like an attack on the concept itself, especially when you combined it with attacking the concept itself. That's also not where you started.
I do think money is the problem. Maybe love of money is more pressing at this time, but if we don't keep the goal of eliminating money in mind, I don't think we'll get anywhere substantially different from where we're at. But I'm willing to agree to disagree on that point for the time being.
I did not flood the dialog, I made no call to action, and I would've preferred critical analysis of the problems of money over talking about tense. If you want to have debates instead of arguments, I suggest examining your approach.
Please provide a non-authoritatian answer that has scaled and has produced advanced technology like modern medical devices and telecommunications devices.
While you're correct that there are no examples of such a society*, that isn't because money is crucial to development. It's because the time of technological breakthroughs happened in a global capitalist economy. Just because that's the way history played out doesn't mean that was the only way it could've. Money didn't invent those things, people did. They had the time and resources to make that stuff happen. And yes, they got those resources via a moneyed economy, but that doesn't mean those same people couldn't have gotten the same time and resources had they existed within say a library economy.
*
Not exactly a perfect society (what is) but the Incas developed cutting edge technology for the time within a moneyless society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_technologyI apologize for not being clear in what I was asking for. I didnt mean that I wanted an example of a society that, say, developed MRI technology outside the capitalist framework. I simply wanted an example of a society which could produce and use an MRI without the use of money or authoritatian force. They can have access to all the underlying science and technological know-how. But they need to get someone to mine the iron ore that will be smelted to be turned into streel which will become a tool which will be used in the manufacture of an MRI machine... without paying them.
Problem being - no one wants to mine iron ore. There are limits on how much prestige a society can distribute, and little will go to iron ore miners. The actual benefit of the labor is so far removed that the likelihood for personal gratitude from a beneficiary is vanishingly small - for example, someone who has a torn meniscus diagnosed with an MRI is unlikely to send the iron ore miner a personal thank you card. Of course, we could pay our miner in clothes and food and housing - but then we've just reinvented money but less efficient. Seeing no personal benefit to breaking his back every day in a dark hole, out miner would want to find something else to do with his time, resilting in no iron ore, and thus, no MRIs.
But I mean, prove me wrong.
I would again point to the Incas as a decent example. Though I kind of want to pick at your use of "money or authoritarian forces".
Money is currently used as an authoritarian force. It's given those with money restrictive control over our daily lives. Look at all the censorship by those who control the major websites and payment processors on the internet. Look at the who lobbied the creation of infrastructure that forces most every person in the states to own and maintain a car. Look at how they're working on dismantling our public education system. Our police and military exist to protect those with money. This is how capitalism works. Despite some lofty ideas of peace liberty and democracy for all, when the system is based around money everything else will get compromised.
I read up on the Inca. Interesting. But I'm still doubtful they could build an MRI - I want a modern example.
And I'm certainly no fan of the current system - it sounds like you're describing America, and yes, America is a bit of a shit show at the moment. But we should also remember that Sweden's strong social safety nets, Finland's excellent education system, and the Netherlands' transportation infrastructure all exist in societies which use money.
Meanwhile, I don't think eliminating money would really solve the problems you are looking to solve. Power-hungry people will seek power regardless of the system they find themselves in. If they don't become capitalists, they become high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians.
Wasn't the point that nobody would want to mine? But Inca did mine silver copper and clay? Also they built aqueducts and pyramids which I'm sure were plenty back breaking. More importantly.
Not just America. There's a global rightward shift largely fueled by moneyed interests. In the countries you mentioned, the rich are still getting richer and wealth inequality is growing. The wealthy countries all got that way because of colonialist oppression. We live under a global capitalist economy that is directly antagonistic to places that try to live apart from it. Cuba is probably the best modern example of an attempt to break from the capitalist hegemony, but they are punished and slandered for it. But they actually have better health outcomes and longer life expectancy than the imperial core of the USA. And yes they still use money because they live in a world that requires the use of money. That's not saying moneyless society isn't possible, but demonstrates the stranglehold money has over the world.
Yes, power hungry people will always be around, but the money system only feeds into that desire. Capitalism rewards and encourages greed. How are we supposed to keep the power hungry in check when the system is designed for them to flourish? I'd rather see a system that encourages collaboration. A system where reducing your working hours gives you opportunity rather than panic. I don't think that's possible with a system that revolves around money.