What is money?

Money is a symbol of energy expended and a convenience for trade, so it is the energy that goes into the creation of useful goods and services and can be anything buyers and sellers agree is a worthy symbol of the energy they each put forth. Do people think they have no energy to create because their traditional symbol has been invalidated?

No one knows for how many centuries the northeastern Indians used Wampum as their symbol for energy and trade, but it was comprised of a particular kind of shell to be found in certain areas, artistically carved into beads and woven into belts as their symbol for money.

Wampum was defined by Roger Williams and other non-native historians as Indian money, but this definition seems inaccurate and incomplete.21 Wampum exchange embodied a medium of gift-giving whose value was widely accepted among Northeastern Indians, and had a certain value in both use and exchange.22
Daniel Gookin, a Massachusetts missionary of the Wamponoag stated, it answers all occasions, as gold and silver doth with us.24 It did that and much more.

Unfortunately, wampum was doomed to failure when many new European immigrants realized there was wealth for the literal picking up at the beach and they began mass producing wampum and the value deteriorated.

In the 1630's, a large migration of English Puritans to Massachusetts Bay presented another complication. The colony interposed itself into the trade network creating increased competition, rivalry, and agitation. For the period between 1630 and 1660, wampum was a prized commodity in New England spurred on by the fur trade that compelled the struggle. What followed in the next several decades leading up to King Philip's War (1675-1676) was a complicated series of initiatives from the Bay Colony, whose ultimate goal was to control the region and resources. Ruth Thomas of the Mashantucket Pequot put it simply, they wanted to cut out the middleman, and so they did, isolating, then devastating first the powerful Pequot, then the dynamic Narragansett, and then appropriating both the land and control of the wampum trade.59 The Bay Colony, having found small beads more portable than corn for trade and saving coin for European markets, declared wampum legal tender in 1637 valued at six beads a penny.

www.hartford-hwp.com...

Everyone knows Ben Franklin was very impressed with the methods and traditions of the Iroquois and that many of those ideas were later embedded in the Constitution. But Franklin’s words before the King of England indicate that the ideas of fair trade and honest money they called Colonial Scrip developed by watching how the Iroquois did it.

In the 1750s, the Colonies were very prosperous. There was no income tax, no unemployment, and stable prices. When asked to explain this prosperity to the king's court, Benjamin Franklin replied;

“That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one”.

1764, the production of Colonial Script was made illegal by the Currency Act, passed into law in England (of course due to pressure from the Bank of England) prohibiting the Colonies from issuing their own money, ordering them to use only the money that was provided (in insufficient quantities) by the English bankers. Benjamin Franklin said,

“In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed”.

The effect that the English bankers were having on the Colonies was by far the most significant reason for the Revolutionary War in 1775, in contrast to what is taught in our history books. Benjamin Franklin was clear about this;

“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been for the poverty caused by the bad influence of English bankers on the parliament which has caused, in the colonies, hatred of England and the revolutionary war”.

Although the Declaration of Independence was made in 1776, it wasn’t until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that the new sovereign nation was recognized. The Colonies were once again free to control their own currency. In 1787, the founding fathers made certain that the control of currency was provided for in the United States Constitution. Article 1, section 8, paragraph 5, states;

“The Congress shall have the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof”.

1zipmont.wordpress.com...

But in 1913 an unconstitutional currency Act was signed into law by a treasonous president (Wilson) and here we are, back where King George put us once before, to the end of prosperity and suffering homelessness and depression. So when people tell you that you can never go back, just tell them we’ve already gone back ~ to 1764.

But we can go forward, just as our founders did, with our own Colonial Scrip.

www.time.com...

www.ecommercetimes.com...

www.ratical.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.publicbankinginstitute.org...

The only question is: Do we have the will and energy to free ourselves.

What is money, if we are talking about paper money, then its just a persons feeling of secure trade with another person, and they both believe that it has been set at a certain value, when in fact its worthless. Its all in the mind. Personally I think money is the worlds problem, just think how much better the world would be without it. Trade would still exist, just use something that can actually be of value to the entire civilazation, Not gold. but Skills, Knowledge, Healing, ect.... If it benefits society, I would consider that valuable.

reply to post by Glassbender777


So I've got a car you want to buy but you have nothing I will accept in trade. What then?

reply to post by frazzle

He meant skills or knowledge (jobs) or things you don't carry, per say. So if I wanted your pig's meat when you butcher it I'd work on your farm or something. If I was for some reason a very terrible farm worker I would figure out what you want and then I'd find someone else I can work for - that really needs my kind of skills - in order to get what you want so I can get the pig's meat from you later on.

Of course, that all takes a lot of time. IF my skills were especially valuable to you - like if i was a very good farm worker and you needed my quality of work - and the things you produced were very valuable to me - like pig's meat - then it would be an ideal situation.

The problem with all this occurs when it's not ideal. It requires a lot of time.

I imagine the dynamics of this could be simulated with software. It might not tell you too much, but I'm sure it would give you an idea what's going on in the broad scheme of things.

Imagine for a moment how things would work without money. No one has anything to sell anyway, in fact, because no one can really own anything. All resources are of the Earth. No one owns Earth so her resources are ours by all rights.

Now extrapolate. You'll get there in the end.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
Imagine for a moment how things would work without money. No one has anything to sell anyway, in fact, because no one can really own anything. All resources are of the Earth. No one owns Earth so her resources are ours by all rights.

Now extrapolate. You'll get there in the end.

The earth would be a cold and (almost?) lifeless rock without the sun. In fact, it might not even be here. So really the earth has the sun to thank and in that respect the sun owns the earth.

Actually we can go back further. There was a cloud of dust that preceded the formation of our sun. This dust is what led to its birth. And this dust supposedly resulted from the explosion of other stars. So our own sun, if I read this right, is the result of previous exploded stars. The planets also coalesced from this dust. So it's all somehow the result of distant historical footnotes.

You know, nobody chose to be born into this life. We simply became conscious in our mother and have held on ever since for fear of death or of the pain which precedes death. And yet we find ourselves always in debt. It's easy to understand how. The reason is that everything we do requires energy. Whether it's a thought or it's a movement of your heart, your lungs, or your limbs, all of it requires energy to be converted into useful forms. This translates to the need for food and water and air and even sunlight. But just getting energy in useful forms isn't enough, you also need to survive in the environment. This requires self-preservation instincts and shelter and intelligence and teamwork. Shelter is not pre-existing, it must be built and maintained. Instinct comes to us from a long history of trial and error by our ancestors that lived and died just as we will if we stick around. Intelligence requires a brain which requires thoughts which themselves require energy. Teamwork requires social interaction which is derived from from our intelligence and our senses that have mutually evolved over time. And what else am I missing, probably a lot. So you see, in sum total, we're in debt because we need energy to live and to get energy you have to work. Ultimately, this debt kills us as we're unable to meet its demands. This happens when we grow old and feeble and unable to pay the price.

That's how things work without our money. Do you see, it doesn't matter if we're without money since energy, something we require to live, is in essence money. And if you don't have it, you die.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Can you take that in the right direction, please? Take it to a hitherto unknown position. This is about money. It is nothing and it represents a lie. It is in proportion to nothing. The suggestion to start with my statement - which is entirely true and in no way false - was the starting point. There was no statement of ownership thereafter because that in itself is not only an illusion but also a delusion, once the real state of affairs is realized.

Now, perhaps you can try again. Extrapolate.

reply to post by jonnywhite

Of course, that all takes a lot of time. IF my skills were especially valuable to you - like if i was a very good farm worker and you needed my quality of work - and the things you produced were very valuable to me - like pig's meat - then it would be an ideal situation.

Great, you'd have lots of pig meat. Now what are you going to do for some vegetables to go with your pork chops if all your energy goes into working on a pig farm. Now if the farmer paid you in "whatevers" you could trade your work on the farm for meat and still have some whatevers in your pocket to buy anything else you might want or need.

Barter is great, but limiting yourself to pure barter is foolish. Even primitive peoples recognised that fact.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
Imagine for a moment how things would work without money. No one has anything to sell anyway, in fact, because no one can really own anything. All resources are of the Earth. No one owns Earth so her resources are ours by all rights.

Now extrapolate. You'll get there in the end.

Are you referring to hunting and gathering? How would that work for city dwellers who haven't yet developed a taste for concrete? Well, on second thought, I suppose the zombies would be fat and happy, anyway.

Yesterday I thought how we trap energy in reactors to "mine" it for useful, transmittable energy. Then I thought that intelligence is similarly trapped inside a brain to "mine" it for useful, transmittable intelligence. What's doing the mining? DNA. DNA is what ultimately survives and we're its vehicle.

That has to be a strange thought because it implies a latent intelligence in everything just as there is a latent energy to everything. It becomes useful when we trap it and transform it. That intelligence is some kind of base behavior of physics. It's as fundamental as energy. But what's latent intelligence?

This is not science, it's pure thought experiment.

But it's also somewhat off topic, maybe. Not sure. Living means using energy. The energy we use to live acts as money, according to my last post. And since we can't pay the price, we die.

Originally posted by jonnywhite

So you see, in sum total, we're in debt because we need energy to live and to get energy you have to work. Ultimately, this debt kills us as we're unable to meet its demands. This happens when we grow old and feeble and unable to pay the price.

That's how things work without our money. Do you see, it doesn't matter if we're without money since energy, something we require to live, is in essence money. And if you don't have it, you die.

Just because ultra-modern, well-educated Americans have never experienced and therefore doubt a currency system that is not based on debt could exist doesn't mean that no such thing has never existed right here in America. As Ben Franklin said:

“In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one”.

That can't be emphasized too much. Money does NOT have to result in debt and that's the point of this thread.

reply to post by frazzle


No, it's not about reverting. I can't believe it's this difficult to get people to understand that *you can still do the same job - or even one you might truly enjoy - when money is not a factor*. All the resources of the Earth are still there, even when you remove the money. The jobs still have to be done, with or without money. The difference might be that you aren't inclined toward jobs that offer no personal reward (but maybe better income) and thereby reduce the quality of your life if you didn't have that false carrot. The point is that you would be true to yourself and your best interest.

Imagine if everything were available to everyone all the time. Where would crime go? Where would status-seeking go? Where would pain and suffering go? If we all had homes and health care and food and furniture and jobs that we loved doing - because everything is free anyway - we could live in a real world. Not one built on illusion. Money is an illusion.

Can you understand that now?

reply to post by CosmicEgg

Imagine if everything were available to everyone all the time. Where would crime go? Where would status-seeking go? Where would pain and suffering go? If we all had homes and health care and food and furniture and jobs that we loved doing - because everything is free anyway - we could live in a real world. Not one built on illusion. Money is an illusion.

Can you understand that now?

No I can't understand that now, although I can understand the sincire desire for it, but if everything were available to everyone all the time, this would be heaven on earth and the two "locales" are some distance apart. In heaven lions lie down with the lambs, on earth they eat them.

All I'm trying to say here is that unless and until we have an unbiased, non fractional bank, transparent currency with which to trade, the lions will win as they have been winning for the past 6000 years. With an open economy any non-debt currency would provide, there would be less pain and suffering on earth as well as better food and healthcare for all us lambs at a small percentage of what they now cost due to the interest, taxes, fees and insurance that are tacked onto every blessed transaction.

Granted, it'll still be earth where things aren't always fair, they would just be MORE fair.

reply to post by frazzle


Well, do you think there would be more or less available if we lived by my posited scenario? Are there more resources or less resources with a money-based economy? What if things just were as they are now but minus the whole concept of money. Naturally things would be better, in fact, because we would all be happier, not having to thing of survival or "getting ahead in life". There would just always be everything we need and because people like different things, we could also seek out those things we like most rather than just because they're status symbols. We would exercise our true preferences.

Does that make it clearer?

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by frazzle

 

Well, do you think there would be more or less available if we lived by my posited scenario? Are there more resources or less resources with a money-based economy? What if things just were as they are now but minus the whole concept of money. Naturally things would be better, in fact, because we would all be happier, not having to thing of survival or "getting ahead in life". There would just always be everything we need and because people like different things, we could also seek out those things we like most rather than just because they're status symbols. We would exercise our true preferences.

Does that make it clearer?

Of course there would be no more or no less resources available in your scenario, however gaining access to them without some form of currency is the problem. In a totally free society such as was enjoyed by the indigenous peoples, your scenario was, in fact, their lifeways and god knows I respect them greatly for it.

But you probably couldn't find ten people out of a hundred who would willingly renounce the "other" things they'd have to give up, such as technology which has to be PAID for or it simply wouldn't exist.

Before the current currency was debauched into "the love of things," status seekers were pretty much limited to the big cities. Us rural folk were having pie socials and square dances while the "ROYALTY" were putting on the dog in their uncomfortable finery and jewels. It has only been in the last 60 or so years, after people who cared nothing for status had been driven off the land and crammed into those big cities that they also decided they would have put on the dog to just stay even with our progress into hell.

Incidentally, I am one of those ten people mentioned above and it sounds like you are another, but we're outnumbered, so we need to find workable solutions that exist in the real world, not fantasy (no offense intended).

reply to post by frazzle


Oh umm...why do you think technology has to be paid for? Why do you assume that civilization cannot continue in a very similar way without money? Why would people not still work because they want stuff made? Why would people not make stuff, because that's what they want and love to do? Wouldn't things work better because people were keen to make things nicer, better, faster, longer-lasting, more efficient simply for the intellectual challenge of it?

What is your obsession with money? It's not that way for me. I live on very, very little because there is nothing I want. I am content. If all the money in the world evaporated right now, I would not lose my frame of reference. I would continue doing what I do, which is to help others with things they need done. That's the bottom line. That is my choice. How I implement that is a balance between their need and what I have to offer. We are partners in the situation. I am not beholden to them. They are not my employers. There is no hierarchy in this. They cannot do what I do for any number of reasons. Is this for money? No, it is not. I am living what I recommend to the extent that I can, for now. I will do it entirely as soon as possible.

Drop the thought of money. See that things will still flow. The sun will still rise and set without our clocks to tell it so. We can still have all we have now but better without money.

Think about what money hinders. Remove those barriers from the equation. Pair that with the previously mentioned benefits and you might see where humanity could experience a massive growth boom in one fell swoop by removing money from our civilization.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by frazzle

 

Oh umm...why do you think technology has to be paid for?

Who would absorb the costs of creating the technology if there weren't rewards? Who do you know who is such a philanthropist that they'd spend their time and effort just to give you their products? People may love to make things, but very few will simply give them away to people who don't have anything they might accept in exchange. No, people do not love to work, at least for free, and pride of workmanship died when the rewards the makers of products could receive for the time and effort expended were eaten up by inflation of the value of the money.

I don't have an obsession with money although I suppose I do have an obsession with free trade, where you make a nice widget and name your price and I meet that price or we dicker about it until we reach an agreement, or don't. We could do that easily without billions of dollars being spent on regulating HOW you made it, where you get your raw materials, in what kind of building you made it, that you provided two bathrooms for your boy and girl customers and that you paid all the proper fees and permits and taxes that allow you to make that widget. This is the real world. And before long you're thinking "to hell with making widgets, I'll just watch the damn TV and let someone else worry about submitting to all these friggin' regulations."


Or why would you invent something new and useful if the patent could be filed by someone else before you even made it down to the patent office. That's the thing about vulture capitalism, there are vultures out there but they wouldn't have stolen your money, just your ideas which have value.

I probably live on less than you and I'm content, but I see the direction the economy is going and I have children so I make these suggestions for those who will have to live through the coming collapse and alternate currency is mainly a stop gap to keep local trade going, nothing more. But it certainly offers more options than pure barter. Incidentally, I have a daughter who makes widgets and she sells them so she can put food on the table for her own children. She's a good hearted soul, but she doesn't give the stuff she makes away. Nobody would.

Your own situation is the exception, not the rule, and I doubt you're saying that your "non employers" are functioning in the same mode as you, totally cashless. So when you can demonstrate a whole culture or society that has ever experienced any kind of growth boom, or even survival, without a means of exchange we'll be in business and I'll get on board with your idea.

reply to post by frazzle


I can't understand how you're still talking about costs. Forget costs. There are none. Nothing costs anything. You talk about free trade. Define "free". Now change that definition to mean "without cost or payment". No money exists in this world. It is no more. Now imagine free trade in a pure sense.

Is that even a little clearer? Because I'm not doing this again with you. Either you can wrap your head around "no money" or just don't respond to this exercise. You either can or can't get it. Don't disappoint me!

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by frazzle

 

I can't understand how you're still talking about costs. Forget costs. There are none. Nothing costs anything. You talk about free trade. Define "free". Now change that definition to mean "without cost or payment". No money exists in this world. It is no more. Now imagine free trade in a pure sense.

Is that even a little clearer? Because I'm not doing this again with you. Either you can wrap your head around "no money" or just don't respond to this exercise. You either can or can't get it. Don't disappoint me!

Try mailing a letter. Just tell the post man there is no such thing as money for postage and see if you can get him to wrap his mind around it.

Even the old pony express dude wouldn't have bought that line.

Free trade is any kind of commerce in which NO one interferes with the manufacturer, the seller or the buyer.

Why won't you give me an example of a culture or society that operates successfully on "no money"?

Money is a version of my time.

the real question is what is Time.

but no one will ask this question or answer it; Not even the people at CERN.

they'll come up with a different question and answer and live happily ever after.