A country without Money how it's work?

[T'Girl]

KamenRiderBlade wrote:

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All because there isn't money doesn't mean everybody works for the state.

Well, he did not say "everybody," he said every company ... i.e. business.

I don't even understand how you came to that logic.

In modern society, resources for a business are largely allocated with money. Electrical power, property, structures, goods, services, equipment, talented people.

If a government totally controls the allocation of all the "free" resources, they effectively own all businesses. If they only exercise a small degree of control through laws, regulations and taxes, then they don't own all businesses.

If there is a new residential tower being built in 24th century San Fransisco, who is doing the actual construction? A private company or a government? And who owns it after it's finished, by which I mean who is responsible for it, maintenance and upkeep? What mechanism decides who get to live there, who get the penthouse view, and who faces a wall on the other side of an alley?

In a society with a functioning monetary system, many of these latter decisions would be made with money, and who has it. In a work of complete fantasy, you can say "these things just happen all by themselves." Somewhere decisions are being made, people using money, or government using authority.

And that KamenRiderBlade is how Brainsucker "came to that logic." If I understand his position correctly.

It's all in the details.

[Brainsucker]

Merry Christmas wrote:

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Well, he did not say "everybody," he said every company ... i.e. business.

In modern society, resources for a business are largely allocated with money. Electrical power, property, structures, goods, services, equipment, talented people.

If a government totally controls the allocation of all the "free" resources, they effectively own all businesses. If they only exercise a small degree of control through laws, regulations and taxes, then they don't own all businesses.

If there is a new residential tower being built in 24th century San Fransisco, who is doing the actual construction? A private company or a government? And who owns it after it's finished, by which I mean who is responsible for it, maintenance and upkeep? What mechanism decides who get to live there, who get the penthouse view, and who faces a wall on the other side of an alley?

In a society with a functioning monetary system, many of these latter decisions would be made with money, and who has it. In a work of complete fantasy, you can say "these things just happen all by themselves." Somewhere decisions are being made, people using money, or government using authority.

And that KamenRiderBlade is how Brainsucker "came to that logic." If I understand his position correctly.

It's all in the details.

Yes thank you. It is what I means.

That's why I think that a government that not using money, they would own every companies on the planet. Because no one would care to open a private company to provide service for the people.

[robau]

But in the Utopia, you're supposed to want to provide a service for your fellow man. Like a restaurant. Or wine. It's supposed to be rewarding and fulfilling by itself.

[Brainsucker]

robau wrote:

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But in the Utopia, you're supposed to want to provide a service for your fellow man. Like a restaurant. Or wine. It's supposed to be rewarding and fulfilling by itself.

Well I don't know. But tell me, what push you to provide service to other people in daily basis for your entire life? To open a restaurant that open at 9 AM to 9 PM everyday is not an easy task. You have to sacrifice your life style, your family time, for work. Not to mention that you need helpers to cook, clean, and serve. And because you serve a non replicator food, then you need to buy the meat etc in the market, prepare them, etc.

It is definitely not a one man show activity. And it will bore you after two or three years because of the repetitious and hard work. People keep doing this today because it is profitable. What about in the 24th century?

So... how do you do that? It is rewarding and fulfilling by itself? yes, it is. But how do you keep doing that everyday for your entire life? What motivate you to work and work, and work in a never ending same activity? Remember, a restaurant is different to a canteen or a chicken coop.

It is different if there is a government interfering. Like this :

The Earth Government give a rule to the entire Earth Population :

The Government said : Earth is the safest place in the universe. Ok, I can provide you a safe haven for your entire family, give your children education, food, etc. But you must work for me (the Government) with your skill. And because you can cook, then you should open a restaurant. I'll provide you with the raw material, etc. You must work to provide your neighborhood with good food. A restaurant is a life style center. It makes people happy, and the government is happy if seeing their people happy. Because there is no unrest on Earth (a kind of population control program)

Then what about the lazy people and free loader? It easy. Just get out of Earth. Seek your fortune in the backwater colony.

Well, it is not a paradise like we want to think, but it work, I think.

[T'Girl]

robau wrote:

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But in the Utopia ...

We don't all have the same idea of what constitutes "utopia."

you're supposed to want to provide a service for your fellow man.

But we only heard this from two characters on the show, and one of them was a child at the time. There's certainly nothing wrong with selling quality services to your fellow citizens. Responsible adults do not need to have all things "provided" for them, they can make their own way in a complex society. Adults are not children.

It's supposed to be rewarding and fulfilling by itself.

Not always, you really should be compensated for you efforts, whether they are intellectual or physical.

[cgervasi]

Brainsucker wrote:

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1. Without money, what is the stimulation for people to establish private companies? Work for free?

The idea behind this point is scarcity motivates people to product things to trade for scarce goods and services. Suppose that because of automation goods and services were not scare.

There is a recent book about what motivates people called Drive. It claims once you pay people the going rate, so they don't feel cheated, people mostly aren't motivated by money. They're motivated desire to finish a puzzle.

The need for money IMHO would come up any time something is scarce. You'd have to find something to trade, but you cannot trade without mutual coincidence of needs. So some sort of medium of exchange.

It seems to me that the writers of Star Trek confuse materialism with money. Money is just a medium of exchange. They want to say there is no materialism or scarcity, but they wrongly say there is no medium exchange.

Credits are mentioned a medium of exchange. It could be Credits or Latinum are used to make trades, but trading is less frequent because scarcity is less common. In the US many fast-food places will give you free water and water cups. Banks will give you free pins. Electronics is getting cheap enough that there are dedicated players for a single audiobook-- all the value is in the content, and the player is analogous to the free cup your coffee or pop comes in. If automation continues and things like a basket of groceries or common consumer durables (cars, appliances, etc) are also equally cheap, there would be less need for a medium of exchange. You could make, distribute, and store products with no human labor, so there would be no need to trade anything for them. You use trade only in rare cases like the baseball card Jake wanted. He had to provide services to various people in exchange for things he needed to get the card. It really made the Feringi system look better. Feringi would work for money that could be use to buy whatever goods and service people want. Jake had to find specific services needed by people who had things that would help get the card.

[Lighthammer]

You know, I thought I was gonna have to chime in and write a post similar to what Decks wrote on the first page.

I think I am very pleasant surprised that a lot of people took what he had to say and built largely upon throughout the thread.

That's pretty neat to see.

Usually when I get into this discussion with people; or hell, when I mostly see this topic come up on this forum, it usually seems to fall deep into a complete mess where by everyone is considering the past of humanity and not the future. Everyone always seems to throw maslow out the window in this debate.

If we could achieve a point where Maslow's first tier was UNQUESTIONABLY covered, I think as a whole, we could really start to edge up the entire world towards the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. The problem in today's world is we keep fighting the bottom tier for now real logical reason save greed.

[Deimos Anomaly]

A country without Money how it's work?

Drugs in the water supply? (Or in this case, drugs automatically encoded into all replicated food)

Tweaking of the human genome en-masse to alter basic human nature?

I dunno, but whatever it is, it's radical.

There was a time that several million people worked for no money in America. But it required a system of brutal enforcers, chains and shackles, whips and barbarous punishments, trackers devoted to hunting down runaways, breaking up families to crush people's will etc... and it so outraged people that the country went to war with itself to stop this.

But none of that matters in the weird world of ST. Not quite 500 years after Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, all of humanity is working for no money. Replicator drugs or mass secret genetic reprogramming.

[T'Girl]

cgervasi wrote:

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The need for money IMHO would come up any time something is scarce.

You would also need money for times that you want other people to do things for you. To engage in activities that you can't do, like say doctors or other professionals. To perform actions you need done far away from where you are, that can't be done where you are, like mining (there's a fair amount of mining on the show). To do things you don't wish to do, because they are dangerous or time consuming.

Or pay someone to prepare you a meal, and walk it out to your table overlooking the sunset bay.

There are other uses for money other than scarcity.

In the US many fast-food places will give you free water and water cups. Banks will give you free pins.

But the modern restaurants and banks did pay for these things originally (including the water) from their suppliers. In the case of banks, the pens are not "free," they are "advertising." In the case of the restaurants, other items on the menu are priced to compensate the restaurant's operating costs for the "free" items (cups and water).

Lighthammer wrote:

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Everyone always seems to throw maslow out the window in this debate.

I've been on this board since mid 2009, and Abraham Maslow is rarely mentioned. So it not a matter of his idea being discounted, his hypothesis just doesn't enter into the discussion. I don't really see how you think it to be relevant.

it usually seems to fall deep into a complete mess where by everyone is considering the past of humanity and not the future

What is being considered is basic Human psychology, and the ways we have organized (relatively) stable patterns of human activity for many thousands of years. And the ways we've done this across the world, even in communities in extreme isolation. We're unlikely to fundamentally change who and what we are as a people in a small number of centuries.

[Arpy]

Oh for God's sake. I want to work because it's fulfilling. It's something to do with myself that helps me not go mad at the one end, and provides me a glimpse of perspective of what it's all about at the other. Now, I don't get that much from my job. I do get it from there, but I also get it from drawing, from interacting with friends, from spending time with family. All require effort. In a better world, I'd be better matched with a career that makes the most of this want of mine to work. Again, I don't want to work for the money itself necessarily (though it's a big part of it most of the time when) and I haven't mentioned any ego-stroking feelings of nobility working provides me. It's to maintain sanity and to touch some glimpse of meaning and achievement.

And guess what, I'm willing to bet that EVERYONE no matter how lazy or jaded feels that to some degree. The glory of the Federation economy is that it's set up to make the most of everybody's that. Of course there's still ownership of things and some sort of measurement units of work (money) but you're not thinking about them in the same way we do today. 1) because it's the actual love/need for money that's being discussed in these threads, and most people don't have either in the Federation (love of because that's pointless unless you're like Vash and it's just a game to you; need for because technology provides everything cheaply), and 2), considering those units without love/need for them is like thinking about how many watts of electricity we use today: yeah the info's in your electric bill but you don't care about IT, you care about how MUCH the bill is in dollars.

[RAMA]

Iain M. Banks covers what an evolved post-scarcity society might be like in his Culture series. An article discussing it is here:

http://folk.uio.no/thomas/po/the-culture.html

..and by the man himself here:

http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

I don't think Star Trek would be much different, though of course they actually play the possibilities quite conservatively.

[JarodRussell]

The Federation has an virtually unlimited energy supply because they mainly use very efficient energy sources. And then they have the ability to turn energy into matter and the other way round.

That's why there's no need for money at all.

The idea that people won't work if there's no money, and that people are somehow "better" if they work more and make more money, is a very capitalist one. People will simply do what they want, that's cool, isn't it? And with the right education, inspiration and motivation, you're not just jerking off to your WoW avatar. There would be a lot more artists, a lot more researchers, and a lot more service jobs.

[TheGoodNews]

JarodRussell, did you see my long winded post on page five where I showed historical examples of people working for free in a society that abolished money. Except for the prostitutes, as one commenter quipped.

"Money has been abolished. Neither the standard currency of Spain (the peseta) nor local money is used in transactions within or between any of the collectives of the county or district." The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939 by Sam Dolgoff.

"All around a heady atmosphere of excitement and optimism prevailed. Gerald Brenan said that 'visitors to Barcelona in the autumn of 1936 will never forget the moving and uplifting experience.' Foreigners who gave a tip had it returned politely with an explanation of why the practice corrupted both the give and the receiver." The Spanish Civil War by A. Beevor.

"...almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia.

[TheGoodNews]

Arpy, consider these:

"Many of the normal motives of civilized life-snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.-had simply ceased to exist." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia.

"Doctors, barbers, carpenters and cobblers usually gave their services free and in return were maintained by the community." The Spanish Civil War by A. Beevor.

"Medical care and medicines are free. Even postage stamps are free. There is no rent. Housing, building repairs, water, gas, electricity-all are supplied gratis, not only to the collectivists buy also to the 'individualists.'" The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff.

But today we're dismissing this as an utopian sci-fi fantasy when in truth it is a historical reality. Ironic in a way.

[T'Girl]

TheGoodNews wrote:

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JarodRussell, did you see my long winded post on page five where I showed historical examples of people working for free in a society that abolished money.

Problem with your example is the money-less society you're using as an example only last a short period of time, then there was rationing and vouchers. Then General Franco's forces won the civil war, leading to restrictions and suppression of the anarchist's movement.

It's impossible to know if the anarchist society would have been able to be stable over a protracted period of time.

From my grandmother's diarys of that time period in Spain, the anarchist movement was popular. But also people in some places were not alway given a option as to whether this was a system they wanted to live under. The anarchists could be quite forceful and militant.

"...almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy."

The lecture did not (apparently) come from the lift-boy himself. Maybe he would have preferred to keep the tip?