What we use now is not actual money...

reply to post by crankySamurai


I agree.

reply to post by crankySamurai

Well its "money" because the State has deemed it "legal tender" but it has no real value, not since Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1971.

For the past 30 years (especially the past 8), Ron Paul has now educated an entire generation on "creating money out of thin air", the "Federal Reserve", the "hidden tax on the Middle Class" i.e. inflation and honest money.

The form of currency we use as money is not really the problem. Money itself is--the idea that goods and services must be exchanged for other goods and services (or something that represents those goods and services); the "tit-for-tat" principle, if you will. I'll give you something only if you give me something of comparable "value" (another arbitrary cultural designation).

Humanity doesn't need to start exchanging tangible goods with a mutually-accepted, culturally defined value such as gold, etc. We've done that before. Look at what has developed from it. Going back to how things used to be isn't going to change anything--in fact, it's a little crazy if you ask me.

Which brings me to what some libertarians refer to as "true capitalism" or "anarcho-capitalism"; that is, an economy completely free from state interference. I'm all for getting the state as out of our lives as possible (completely, preferably), however even if this is accomplished, you'd still have us dealing with some form of "capitalism".

Capitalism, in whatever form strikes your fancy, is an unsustatinable economic system. It is based on infinite growth in a world of finite resources. It doesn't take a quantum mechanics student to figure out that things just won't work that way, and the end result--the consolidation of resources into the hands of a few--will always be the same. It doesn't matter if the state is involved or not. The system will eventually consume itself.

But I digress. Again, the currency used is irrelevant. It's the idea of using money in the first place. Rather than trying to make our currency more stable and equitable, we should focus on the principle itself.

Give of yourself and your resources freely, asking for or expecting nothing in return. Money itself is what needs to be destroyed, not the abstractions we use to represent it.

reply to post by NthOther


If you are against the exchange of goods and services you are against the concept of private property. This in turn means that you would be against self ownership (private property is a consequence of this). If a person owns what he creates/produces trade will take place naturally in a free society.

The only way to prevent trade would be by force. The only way to prevent private property would be to deny the ownership of ones self, once again by force. This is no more "going back" than the acknowledgement of the principles of addition is "going back".

The consolidation of resources being experienced now is not from the recognition of private property and voluntary action, it is instead from the denial of these principles.

Government is being used as a tool by groups of people to impose force in the market for self-serving purposes. This is the cause of massive amounts of wealth accumulation by a few at the expense of everyone. Money being that main tool.

Lastly to your claim of finite resources being unsustainable.... the only resource that you need be concerned with is mans ingenuity, the materials are already here.

reply to post by crankySamurai


What you call man's ingenuity I call his self-destructive psychosis. While the potential is certainly there, I don't see many positive results from this so-called "genius" of ours thus far. I see an accelerating inverse correlation between the level of our "ingenuity" and the sustainable use of resources.

reply to post by NthOther


Regardless of what you think of man and his ability, the facts that I stated earlier are not altered.

Your position throws out all claim individuals have to the fruits of their labor. You are claiming that man does not own what he makes. If he does not own what his actions produce then he does not own his actions. If he does not own his actions he does not own his own body and he is instead a slave to others.

Is this not what you are claiming?

reply to post by crankySamurai


It doesn't necessarily follow that just because I don't believe in money it somehow means that I think coming to your house and taking your stuff through force is ok. That isn't a logical conclusion to draw.

reply to post by NthOther


I am stating that money is a consequence of private property and voluntary action. It is a natural phenomenon that arises among people who honor these principles. To deny money, a consequence of these principles, is to deny these principles.

Actual money arises first as a real commodity.

reply to post by crankySamurai


Money and private property are not co-dependent. You can take money out of the equation and still maintain respect for private property. Let's say we live in a society wherein the exchange of commodities is not required for survival, like it is (labor for currency, currency for goods, etc.). I'm making salsa tonight and I don't have any cilantro. But I know that Bob down the street has a garden full of it, and being the tight neighbors we are I know he'll help me out. So I go down to Bob's house and he's not home. I know he'd give me the cilantro (free of charge and without barter) if he were home, so do I just take the cilantro and leave a little note for him? No. Of course not, because I have respect for Bob and what Bob has produced. It's Bob's Stuff.

Now you don't see money anywhere in this situation, but you do see respect for private property. One can exist without the other; one doesn't predict or define the other. Denying money because it is a consequence of private property (although now represents literally nothing) is not equivalent to denying private property itself.

I think we're talking past each other here.

reply to post by ghoulardi

True it is not worthless as it represents one's work (what we get paid in). However, as worth from savings it is less as the money paid for savings is so low now. Most people dont save their earnings - they spend it (rent, food, clothing, health care, transportation, fuel, etc). BUT having said that it is still not a good idea to save excess earnings in the bank for the long term at these low interest rates....or it will just whittle away with inflation.

reply to post by NthOther


What if you neighbor did not have cilantro or any other material that you needed? How would you then get it?

Would you not be expecting someone to provide their material for you?

You are entitling yourself to someone else's property.

You may still respect their property and not take it by force, but what then if nobody consented to give you the material you ask for? Perhaps it is scarce or highly valuable.

If it is not their moral obligation to give you the good you need and you respect that, what action would you take?

The next step would be to offer them something they may equally or more than the good you are looking for. This is then trade taking place.

reply to post by crankySamurai


If no one had any cilantro then I wouldn't be putting any cilantro in my salsa. We're definitely not on the same frequency.

Well, with our present national debt, money has become Yenom.

reply to post by NthOther


Don't act naive its not about cilantro or any individual item. I'm talking about something that you need but no one will willingly give it to you.

reply to post by rickymouse


It has become debt but it was the fact that it was pieces of paper which allowed it to become debt. Money is not and cannot be pieces of paper.

Money grows as commodity and is selected by the market as a process of the market. It is not pieces of paper. It is only when money is thought of as pieces of paper that it can be turned into Yenom.

Originally posted by crankySamurai
reply to post by NthOther

 

Don't act naive its not about cilantro or any individual item. I'm talking about something that you need to be but no one will willing give it to you.

And that's how we're talking past each other. It's the whole "giving" and "taking" thing in principle that we have different conceptions of; the "tit-for-tat" mentality I referred to earlier.

If I need something and no one is willing to "give" it to me (as if it has to be a permanent arrangement), then I might have to consider the possibility that my neighbors are a bunch of jerks and that I should move. I won't even get into the idea that if it's something you really, truly need, you should probably know how to either make it yourself or do without.

But that's getting off on a different tangent.

reply to post by NthOther


Well the idea is that there is a specific amount of goods while peoples "wants" are infinite.

Everyone may want a jet plane but there are only so many jet planes made. There is no way to tell how many planes should be made or who should get to use them. Just because everyone wants a jet plane does not mean that there should be 6 billion jet planes made.

By what system are resources allocated? How do we know how many farms vs bars vs mines that there should be?

It is through exchange that people are able to determine the demand of one item or service vs another. This is essential so that resources are arranged and used in the most efficient way. Exchange determines what goods are more valuable should be produced on a wider scale. Without exchange there is no means for determining the value of a particular good or service.

Originally posted by crankySamurai
reply to post by NthOther

 

By what system are resources allocated? How do we know how many farms vs bars vs mines that there should be?

It is through exchange that people are able to determine the demand of one item or service vs another. This is essential so that resources are arranged and used in the most efficient way. Exchange determines what goods are more valuable should be produced on a wider scale. Without exchange there is no means for determining value.

I can tell you exactly how many mines we would need if human beings weren't forcibly compelled into operating them because it is necessary for them to sell their labor to survive. None. Zero. No human being in their right mind would voluntarily choose to spend his life hundreds of feet underground in a dangerous, toxic environment. Nada. Not one mine would exist if human beings weren't forced down into them.

That means 99% of the things you use on a daily basis wouldn't exist--if we weren't all slaves to this thing called "money". So when you talk about determining comparative value through exchange, I'll have to maintain that we need to critically re-examine what really has any value at all; or, rather, our very conception of value.

reply to post by crankySamurai


So what does actual money look like?

Bits of metal? Stones?

reply to post by NthOther


So your plan is to forgo technology?

With no mines we have no steal, no metal ect. Your plan is to go back to the dark ages before we even mined copper?

I'm not sure what kind of world you are envisioning but it sounds like one where people live in pretty rough conditions, struggling to meet basic needs like warmth and water... Not sure why you are pushing this.

Technology is a good thing, mines are a good thing. It is what has brought man out of the dark ages. People are not forced by other people to go down into mines. People are forced to by nature to move forward or else live in the same conditions that we arrived in. It is a choice to progress. It is tough to progress. But guarantee you it is tougher to live in huts struggling for food warmth and water.