The no-money nation

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Interesting thought experiment.

Maybe "The Less-Important-Money-Society" is a more realistic concept. Every complex society needs some sort of wealth-token, but its relative importance does vary widely. One negative consequence: the reduction of the importance of money would mean a rise in conflict over access to direct sources of power and prestige-since money could buy less of either. Hyperinflationary periods tend to be violent-though often creative as well. Keynes said somewhere that one of the unsung advantages of capitalism was diverting anti-social impulses towards productive uses (or at least, non-violent ones): "It is better that a man tyranize over his bank account than over his neighbor."

Maybe mindless materialism is the price we pay for (relative) peace and freedom?

Umm ... what is to stop every one from going in and demanding the biggest TV made, the fanciest car made, etc? And if people like me could simply go into bookstores and get all the books free, the shelves would be stripped in no time.

Bottom line - it wouldn't work because people would assume that they can have as much as they want, and work as little as they want. There would be no yoke between consumption and production.

The correct saying is "The love of money is the root of all evil. And it doesnt refer to just money itself, but the act of hoarding. Money just enables differed hoarding.

So the premise solves nothing.

Exactly. There would be little or no incentive to produce goods for services if one did not get something in line with what he gave or if one did not give something in line with what he got. A underlying the money economy is the principle of trade which goes way back before there was any money.

ruveyn

The real problems arise, not for money as a means of exchange or as a basis for rewarding production, but as a basis for controlling the flow of money. Money earned for the use of money poisons the system.

If I rent you my house I expect it back at the end of the lease along with rental. If I lend you my money I expect it back at the end of the loan period along with rental. So where is the poison?

Why should I lend anyone money and not be compensated for the fact I did not have it for a while and the associated risk of not being repaid?

ruveyn

And along those lines, I doubt that one would find many anti-usury economists, as it is necessary for a lot of functioning. Money has a time-value, and usury is based upon the time-value of money. If there was no interest, then lending would drop significantly for the reasons that ruveyn put forward.

What you say is true but with the money lent comes not only compensation for the loan but control of the use of the money lent and this is what frequently (not always) corrupts the quality of the production. Business becomes oriented to maximize profits and although one would hope this would entail not only maximizing the efficiency of production but also the quality of the production, our recent experience with adulterated and inferior products from China indicates that emphasizing profits to compensate financing is not necessarily a socially beneficial action.

Actually, I think the general trend with developing nations is that they usually go through a phase of pushing crappy products to market, so I don't think this is just a financing issue, but rather an unfortunate phase in these nations, before their companies start seeing quality as the ideal path to take.

It will only work if done on a world-wide level, and only when humans stop being so s***ty to each other. So basically, it won't work in our lifetimes.

For the time being, I would google "anarcho-conservatism".

Cheaper, better, sooner. Any two, but never three.

The best guarantee (and it is not perfect) of a good product at reasonable prices is a competitive marketplaces. Sometimes it actually works out.

ruveyn

There are numerous incidences when only government intervention can counteract the rapacious demand for profits which causes great social harm. The current problem with derivatives in the financial world is the outstanding example but the long delays in getting seat belts into automobiles, the corruption of politicians over getting sensible gas mileage in cars, the concerted efforts to buy out and destroy the entire community electric local transportation systems in the USA which were more efficient than petroleum powered automobiles, the refusal of electric companies to permit individual users to receive compensation for feeding power back into the grid, the rampant destruction of the environment by chopping off the tops of mountains in West Virginia, the huge delays in General Electric's cleanup of the poisons they dumped into the Hudson River, the nuclear power industry's demand for new power reactors when no insurance company will back their construction because of the repeated near huge disasters in the past and the easily refuted claim that they are economic and non-polluting, the repeated distribution of contaminated food because the government has cut back disastrously on supervision and inspection, the continuous introduction of new drugs by companies that want new patent rights to keep high prices although the improvements over old drugs is negligible or non existent.
Market regulation has proved over and over again to be insufficient to control the the rapacious hunger for profits at any cost to the public benefits.

The market has produced good computers and recording devices. That is mostly because of competition. What it has not produced is a fair, reliable and efficient monopoly utility such as electrical production, natural gas, clean water supply etc. Basically any form of economic activity which is inherently monopolist or ologopolist needs to be regulated by something, since (by definition) competition is not the controlling factor. But keep in mind, the biggest Monopoly in our society is Government. Only it can have an Army and it virtually owns the roads. Government also has the power of eminent domain which means they can legally steal your land and water.

ruveyn

You seem to suggest that the government which theoretically, at least, functions at the will of the people is inferior to the huge monopolies or very large corporations in its motivations to work for the benefit of the citizens. And, it seems, that you favor the large corporations like the arms manufacturers, like Blackwater, like the large petroleum corporations, like Halliburton and Bechtel, like Microsoft to have total control and dispense altogether with the democratic process.

Actually I think it is time to end the immunity the law gives to Corporations by deeming them "artificial persons". I think the Principle Officers of Corporations should be held both civilly and criminally liable for wrong doings in the name of corporations. Furthermore I think it is time to modify the limited liability concessions made to corporations and make both officers and stock holders civilly liable for wrong doings and damages. And most important of all it is high time and well over time to eliminate subsidies at tax payer expense to business firms. When businesses have work under the same restrictions as real live bleeding human beings, I think we shall see some better results.

What I suggest is that there are no good governments anywhere. There are only bad ones and worse ones. Government has been a necessary evil to Mankind since the beginning of Agriculture. A necessary evil is still an evil.

With great reluctance I subscribe to the Hobbesian View of things. We need governments to keep the strong from eating the weak alive. But keep in mind when the government goes bad then we have to go to the mattresses and have a revolution which is likely to be bloody and nasty.

ruveyn