The idea that social structures have a "logical end" is pure hubris and have no basis on reality.
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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no
It really is the most efficient way to manage and trade scarce resources. Going back to a barter system wouldn't be possible with the size and scope of a global economy.
Their usefulness to whom
Humans are not known for solving problems on time
Not until we reach a post-scarcity society.
We're already there. The only thing preventing it is tribalism and the world oligarchs. We have the knowledge and capabilities, just not the willingness.
I'm not sure you know what post scarcity means.
Imagine a world where nobody needs to work, but everyone can still have any material desire filled at any time.
Think Star Trek. Unlimited energy resources, combined with replicators which use that endless energy to create unlimited stuff without any labor required.
It's also important to note that a lot of that scarcity is artificial. Sure, we're far from post scarcity, but strife is exacerbated by capitalist systems in all but the most privileged.
Hohoho we are very far from post scarcity. Read any newspaper.
The title and question are different, what exactly are you asking? I don't see currency as a concept ever going away.
Capitalism is fine, we just need to tweak regulations for it to better incentivize the result we (humanity) are looking for.
I wish I had your confidence that capitalism can be tweaked into a fair system.
I honestly think the logical end point to capitalism is self-destructive extreme wealth disparity.
It works in cycles.
The last Guilded Age (think Roaring 20s) ended with the great depression. Which then triggered the creation of all the great economic policies the boomers enjoyed as children, which they've been dismantling since the 70s.
Once things get bad enough, (very nearly there now) the cycle will repeat.
Why do you think this, and what does cycle even mean in this context? If everything is just a cycle repeating, couldn't you argue we're also frozen in a non-cyclic lack of progression?
Those are very big questions. This Wikipedia Page is a good place to start.
The simple answer is, everything humanity does happens in cycles.
But you can think of it as roller-coaster passing through an infinite series of loops. We keep going forward in the long run. But but the repeating loops take us up and down, even upside down and backwards along the way. In every case, coming down each loop gives us the momentum to reach the next one.
No.
First we need a better system for resource allocation. Monetary systems are extremely inefficient, but they're far better than the "trust me, bro" approach of many of the alternatives.
A global post-scarcity society could in theory take over, similar to how it works in Star Trek, but there are a lot of other hurdles that need to be overcome first.
As long as proper distribution of resources requires an effort, it will also need an incentive to do so. Currently this incentive is provided by allowing for a profit margin, and while this does also provide a mechanism for skimming off the top, at least said skimming can be somewhat controlled by a free market ensuring better circumstances for those willing to skim less.
I'm quite curious to know what you mean by 'usefulness' in this context?
No. The concept of money is millenia old and likely too useful to discard. What MIGHT change is how that money is implemented. Wouldn’t be the first time either.
As much as in the 70's when folks said the same or the 40's or at the turn of the century.
There’s actually no such thing as humanity without money; it’s as key to our collective cognition as language.
The Salish Tribes existed in the PacNW for over 13,000 years without money.
Weren’t they the ones that used shells as money?
Wampum was used by Eastern Costal tribes as a storytelling aid.
In the Salish Tribes, dentalium shell necklaces were used as a status symbol/indication of social rank. Some tribes used the necklaces as a type of currency, but I've only heard the "some tribes did this" part; never anything about which specific tribes used dentalium as currency.
Obviously, anything that holds perceived value can be traded.
Source: went to junior high in a school that taught two full years of Haudenosaunee (also called Iroquois) history.
Salish source: I've been a volunteer naturalist in the Puget Sound for eight years with an annual training requirement, with entire days allocated to history of the original Salish tribe for the area where we're working.
If trade occurs, then by definition they have currency; there are no barter economies.
You are confidently incorrect on this. Currency == money. Money is, for we hoi polloi, a barely consentual conversion and exchange system for our labor, hypothetically allowing us to convert our labor into readily fungible exchange units. Money, at the Capital Class level, is debt, and therefore control, i.e. power. Money is just how they keep score.
There are plenty of ~~barter~~ gifting and Communist ("from those of ability to those of need") economies, just on scales that fly below the radar of most economists. Your sweeping assertion leads me to believe that you may simply be ignorant of those non-monetary exchanges. Would you be willing to add more context to your assertion?
Edit: I misspoke; crashfrog raises a valid point, and I meant gift economies.
No ethnographic studies have shown that any present or past society has used barter without any other medium of exchange or measurement, and anthropologists have found no evidence that money emerged from barter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter
What would be an example of the barter economy you’re certain exists? How do they overcome the need for double coincidence?
I misspoke, and you raise a good point. I meant gift economies, and that error is on me. And those are pretty well-documented. I'll stick to my firsthand experiences:
- Waianae, Oahu in Hawaii. The weekly take-what-you-need-bring-what-you-can food exchanges there are a huge stopgap for food insecurity and also spur community bonding
- Burning Man - TTITD, regionals, and much of the hippie festival circuit have a robust gifting culture