The barter system is a myth, it never existed. Not in the ‘I want bricks but only have a sheep and you don’t want a sheep so we both get nothing’ way that it’s taught in highschool econ class.
Before cash, trade could use items of high constant demand - salt, cacao beans, dried tea, etc. - as a medium of exchange. Maybe you’re fine for salt, but someone will always want more salt. It was also much more common to just rely on debt. Sure, take my extra bricks and when you have something of equivalent value that I want, you discharge your debt.
The barter economy is a myth, based on absolutely nothing other than a guy just deciding he was right with no evidence. Indigenous peoples had all sorts of complex, non market, moneyless economies. One of them is known as a gift economy, where there is competition between communities and individuals to give gifts larger than the gift they received before. A modern moneyless economic concept is a library economy: think of libraries, but for everything non-consumable.
I wouldn’t like the library system because it requires you to treat things a certain way.
If we think of it from the perspective of a book (since we’re talking about libraries here), if I borrow a book from a library, I have to treat it well and return it in a condition that somebody else can read it.
If I own a book, I can do whatever I want with it, I can burn it as firewood, I can cut out the words that I don’t like from all of the pages, or I can just scribble all over it with a permanent marker, it’s my book after all.
Define “right” in this context please. If you mean legal right, we’re talking about an entirely different system that would have different laws. The rights you have now may not apply. If you mean moral right, what gives you the moral right to consume resources that need not be consumed that could serve others also? Those seem like some pretty horrible morals if that’s what you believe.
This just shows a total failing of your creativity or critical thinking skills if you can’t even put aside your current ideas to consider what other things can happen. You can’t consider another idea if you aren’t willing to put aside preconceived notions. You aren’t even saying the other system is bad or wouldn’t work or anything. You’re only saying you can’t even consider anything that isn’t exactly what you have now. It may improve your life or it may not, but you can’t even consider it because it’s different.
Without considering how your free use however you want effects others?
Define the others, I’m not out here throwing trash on the streets or smashing windows, I don’t mind helping the people in my community or lending the things that I own to them.
If there’s one copy of a book in a town and its your cherished thing, that’s fine.
If you’re the only person in town with a copy of a library’s worth of books and you aren’t willing to share any with your community to borrow, you’re allowed to do that, but you sound like someone who doesn’t really want to be a member of a community.
Live together or die alone. We can be a civilization one day, or we can keep being monkeys throwing sticks at each other in the dirt, but with smartphones and smog.
If there’s one copy of a book in a town and its your cherished thing, that’s fine.
If you’re the only person in town with a copy of a library’s worth of books and you aren’t willing to share any with your community to borrow, you’re allowed to do that, but you sound like someone who doesn’t really want to be a member of a community.
In that case, it’s all on a case-by-case basis.
There are some books that I would just give away since they would be taking up space, there are some books that I wouldn’t mind lending to anyone at any time, and there are some books that I would only lend to someone that I know personally.
Live together or die alone. We can be a civilization one day, or we can keep being monkeys throwing sticks at each other in the dirt, but with smartphones and smog.
Sure, but we were never meant to be a global one, I’m perfectly fine with being a part of a certain tribe of monkeys that is ready to throw sticks at another tribe for our way of life.
If you don’t value the thing for it’s intended function why are you bothering to take one?
Also, if you destroy or misplace the thing, there’s no reason to give you different things. If you want another thing, you are going to be made to work for it.
If you don’t value the thing for it’s intended function why are you bothering to take one?
That’s beside the point, the point is that I don’t borrow things because I like to have the ability to use them however I want and according to my current needs.
I have a paint can that I can’t get open, but I own a flathead screwdriver. It’s not the intended purpose of a flathead screwdriver, but I can use it as a prybar to open the paint can, if the screwdriver breaks, now I have 2 pieces of metal to use for something else.
I don’t mind working, but I would like to work for a currency that I can use to buy things that I will own and see to use however I see fit for it to be used.
A library economy doesn’t mean you can’t own anything. If you want to own something you can make it or check it out indefinitely. For an example of this, let’s think of checking out a phone.
You’d check it out indefinitely, and you can consider it yours. Since there’s no money or profit incentive, the phones are designed to be durable, easily repairable, and have interoperable parts. Because the library is the means by which we manage the commons, parts are readily available and you can return the broken part (or entire phone) to be recycled and get the replacement.
From competitions, individual interests, passion, necessity, etc. We don’t need money or markets for people to seek innovation. A library steward should also be responsible for automating means of production as best as possible, which would also drive scientific advancement.
The problem then is that all of those, besides nececities aren’t really good at encouraging any innovation.
Yes, inventing something like a heater so people don’t freeze to death or a plow to make tending to a field easier could come out of necessity.
But the dangerous part is that it creates a risk of people just going “yeah, we are comfortable enough already” and the technological development just stopping. If you go back 40 years and 99% of the people would have said that they are perfectly fine living with a CRT TV and a landline phone. There would be no reason for doing any research into any further technology
Part of it is my personal feelings about the current technology. I’m using a phone that is around 4 years old now and sure some of the new foldable phones do sound interesting, but I really have no need to upgrade mine, it makes calls, I can watch YouTube videos, look up where I want to go, and play some games. I don’t really see a need for anything to change for something new and if someone asked me to pitch in for research in phones I would ask why?
As for what drives innovation, I won’t deny that any of the examples that you listed drive innovation, but I guess it’s more about the pace of it.
Right now the companies pour resources into creating a product that meets requirements and that the customers will pick over the competition and give money to the company that created a product that they wanted
Dude. Capitalism kills innovation. I hate that myth so much. Capitalism is more likely to stifle innovation than create it. The goal of capitalism is profit and nothing else. Innovation requires risk, which could cause a loss of profit, so it’s a last resort. It’s more profitable to hinder your opponents than to create something innovative.
For example, much of our innovation in our society comes from research universities. These are, generally, outside of capitalism. They do research and make discoveries for the benefit they bring to society, or sometimes just to improve our knowledge. They don’t do it for profit.
Humans like to improve things and to learn things. There’s no need for it to be profitable. Creating a system that prioritizes this is possible, but it isn’t capitalism.
Honestly currency is fine, but not bastardized by the real villain: capital markets. It has made our currency representative of backwards, antisocial values, and in great quantities, proof of how good one is at extracting value from their fellow humans.
Capital markets have gone from supposedly a means for seed funding for businesses to the final word, despite contributing NO LABOR to the products or services they take almost all the produced profit from. And in our terminal state market capitalism, they’re eating one another and playing economic tricks for short term cash grabs they enforce on companies through threats of lawsuit. LABOR makes the world run, grows the food, makes the discoveries, capital investment just take all the fruits and leaves a few crumbs.
We’re going to collapse, but if we cared, we’d remake our economy that rewards cooperatives and punishes corporations, and capital investment would receive a small fraction of what labor produces instead of the opposite as it is today.
And yes, going back to a barter system would be better than this. We might even still be able to breathe above ground in 50 years.
I know this is going to be necessary, but I’m selfish enough to hope it happens after I get old and die. I really don’t want to have to live through the violent revolution it will take for that to actually get done.
A least you’re more honest than the relatively small class of benefactors of this corrupted economy who don’t even acknowledge that, being supported by skilled laborers at every level of profit and life, but truly self-deluding themselves and others into believing they earned and should have society/politics/media warping levels of wealth. Reward good ideas and harder work yes, but within reason.
OK, let’s say I agree with your reasoning. Do we go back to the barter system?
The barter system is a myth, it never existed. Not in the ‘I want bricks but only have a sheep and you don’t want a sheep so we both get nothing’ way that it’s taught in highschool econ class.
Before cash, trade could use items of high constant demand - salt, cacao beans, dried tea, etc. - as a medium of exchange. Maybe you’re fine for salt, but someone will always want more salt. It was also much more common to just rely on debt. Sure, take my extra bricks and when you have something of equivalent value that I want, you discharge your debt.
You just described commodity money.
The barter economy is a myth, based on absolutely nothing other than a guy just deciding he was right with no evidence. Indigenous peoples had all sorts of complex, non market, moneyless economies. One of them is known as a gift economy, where there is competition between communities and individuals to give gifts larger than the gift they received before. A modern moneyless economic concept is a library economy: think of libraries, but for everything non-consumable.
Produce excess; give it away for bragging rights
What a glorious world it could be, instead of this colossal fucking piece of shit
I wouldn’t like the library system because it requires you to treat things a certain way.
If we think of it from the perspective of a book (since we’re talking about libraries here), if I borrow a book from a library, I have to treat it well and return it in a condition that somebody else can read it.
If I own a book, I can do whatever I want with it, I can burn it as firewood, I can cut out the words that I don’t like from all of the pages, or I can just scribble all over it with a permanent marker, it’s my book after all.
That’s cause you’re selfish.
Well I’m sure he’s the only one. This system sounds great.
Selfish for wanting to own the things that I use and having the right to use them however I want?
Define “right” in this context please. If you mean legal right, we’re talking about an entirely different system that would have different laws. The rights you have now may not apply. If you mean moral right, what gives you the moral right to consume resources that need not be consumed that could serve others also? Those seem like some pretty horrible morals if that’s what you believe.
Yes, I mean a legal right, and I would like to have that legal right in the future, thank you very much.
This just shows a total failing of your creativity or critical thinking skills if you can’t even put aside your current ideas to consider what other things can happen. You can’t consider another idea if you aren’t willing to put aside preconceived notions. You aren’t even saying the other system is bad or wouldn’t work or anything. You’re only saying you can’t even consider anything that isn’t exactly what you have now. It may improve your life or it may not, but you can’t even consider it because it’s different.
Without considering how your free use however you want effects others?
Absolutely.
Humans are social animals, hyper-individualism is antisocial.
Contrary to what the oligarchs tell you, greed and selfishness are character deficits and personal failings.
Not that they haven’t spent the last century propagandizing attempting to rebrand them into virtues like the Orwellian rational self-interest.
Define the others, I’m not out here throwing trash on the streets or smashing windows, I don’t mind helping the people in my community or lending the things that I own to them.
If there’s one copy of a book in a town and its your cherished thing, that’s fine.
If you’re the only person in town with a copy of a library’s worth of books and you aren’t willing to share any with your community to borrow, you’re allowed to do that, but you sound like someone who doesn’t really want to be a member of a community.
Live together or die alone. We can be a civilization one day, or we can keep being monkeys throwing sticks at each other in the dirt, but with smartphones and smog.
In that case, it’s all on a case-by-case basis.
There are some books that I would just give away since they would be taking up space, there are some books that I wouldn’t mind lending to anyone at any time, and there are some books that I would only lend to someone that I know personally.
Sure, but we were never meant to be a global one, I’m perfectly fine with being a part of a certain tribe of monkeys that is ready to throw sticks at another tribe for our way of life.
If you don’t value the thing for it’s intended function why are you bothering to take one?
Also, if you destroy or misplace the thing, there’s no reason to give you different things. If you want another thing, you are going to be made to work for it.
There’s always a bellows that needs pumping.
That’s beside the point, the point is that I don’t borrow things because I like to have the ability to use them however I want and according to my current needs.
I have a paint can that I can’t get open, but I own a flathead screwdriver. It’s not the intended purpose of a flathead screwdriver, but I can use it as a prybar to open the paint can, if the screwdriver breaks, now I have 2 pieces of metal to use for something else.
I don’t mind working, but I would like to work for a currency that I can use to buy things that I will own and see to use however I see fit for it to be used.
Ok man. The use of money does indeed enable you to be a loner misanthrope that is ambivalent about your reputation.
Other “social” systems rely on being “social”
A library economy doesn’t mean you can’t own anything. If you want to own something you can make it or check it out indefinitely. For an example of this, let’s think of checking out a phone.
You’d check it out indefinitely, and you can consider it yours. Since there’s no money or profit incentive, the phones are designed to be durable, easily repairable, and have interoperable parts. Because the library is the means by which we manage the commons, parts are readily available and you can return the broken part (or entire phone) to be recycled and get the replacement.
Then the question is where does the incentive to do it that way and the incentive to innovative come form?
From competitions, individual interests, passion, necessity, etc. We don’t need money or markets for people to seek innovation. A library steward should also be responsible for automating means of production as best as possible, which would also drive scientific advancement.
The problem then is that all of those, besides nececities aren’t really good at encouraging any innovation.
Yes, inventing something like a heater so people don’t freeze to death or a plow to make tending to a field easier could come out of necessity.
But the dangerous part is that it creates a risk of people just going “yeah, we are comfortable enough already” and the technological development just stopping. If you go back 40 years and 99% of the people would have said that they are perfectly fine living with a CRT TV and a landline phone. There would be no reason for doing any research into any further technology
Can you explain why you feel that way? What do you think drives innovation currently?
Part of it is my personal feelings about the current technology. I’m using a phone that is around 4 years old now and sure some of the new foldable phones do sound interesting, but I really have no need to upgrade mine, it makes calls, I can watch YouTube videos, look up where I want to go, and play some games. I don’t really see a need for anything to change for something new and if someone asked me to pitch in for research in phones I would ask why?
As for what drives innovation, I won’t deny that any of the examples that you listed drive innovation, but I guess it’s more about the pace of it.
Right now the companies pour resources into creating a product that meets requirements and that the customers will pick over the competition and give money to the company that created a product that they wanted
Dude. Capitalism kills innovation. I hate that myth so much. Capitalism is more likely to stifle innovation than create it. The goal of capitalism is profit and nothing else. Innovation requires risk, which could cause a loss of profit, so it’s a last resort. It’s more profitable to hinder your opponents than to create something innovative.
Here’s a good breakdown of some of this.
For example, much of our innovation in our society comes from research universities. These are, generally, outside of capitalism. They do research and make discoveries for the benefit they bring to society, or sometimes just to improve our knowledge. They don’t do it for profit.
Humans like to improve things and to learn things. There’s no need for it to be profitable. Creating a system that prioritizes this is possible, but it isn’t capitalism.
Honestly currency is fine, but not bastardized by the real villain: capital markets. It has made our currency representative of backwards, antisocial values, and in great quantities, proof of how good one is at extracting value from their fellow humans.
Capital markets have gone from supposedly a means for seed funding for businesses to the final word, despite contributing NO LABOR to the products or services they take almost all the produced profit from. And in our terminal state market capitalism, they’re eating one another and playing economic tricks for short term cash grabs they enforce on companies through threats of lawsuit. LABOR makes the world run, grows the food, makes the discoveries, capital investment just take all the fruits and leaves a few crumbs.
We’re going to collapse, but if we cared, we’d remake our economy that rewards cooperatives and punishes corporations, and capital investment would receive a small fraction of what labor produces instead of the opposite as it is today.
And yes, going back to a barter system would be better than this. We might even still be able to breathe above ground in 50 years.
I know this is going to be necessary, but I’m selfish enough to hope it happens after I get old and die. I really don’t want to have to live through the violent revolution it will take for that to actually get done.
A least you’re more honest than the relatively small class of benefactors of this corrupted economy who don’t even acknowledge that, being supported by skilled laborers at every level of profit and life, but truly self-deluding themselves and others into believing they earned and should have society/politics/media warping levels of wealth. Reward good ideas and harder work yes, but within reason.
Are we a civilization or not? I want us to be.