The role of money is not about trust, it’s about simplifying exchanges. So if I’m a potato farmer in need of a chicken for dinner, I can just buy it from the chicken farmer. Without money, I would have to go to the chicken farmer, find out that he needs lumber, go to the sawmill, find out what he needs, and so-on until I find someone along the chain that actually needs my potatoes. That setup may be doable when we’re just talking about potatoes, but how are you going to scale that up and keep track of it amongst the 1000 or so people directly involved in making your car?
Without money, I would have to go to the chicken farmer, find out that he needs lumber, go to the sawmill, find out what he needs, and so-on until I find someone along the chain that actually needs my potatoes.
No, in a system of trust you’d go to the chicken farmer and say “hey can I have a chicken, I’ll get you back however I can” and he gives you a chicken. Then you try to ways to help him out until you’ve felt you repaid your “debt”. This is how exchange worked before money under tribal systems. Not every exchange has to be transactional, that’s just something capitalism tries to instill in us.
Yes but you’re saying exactly the same thing he’s saying…
Then you try to ways to help him out until you’ve felt you repaid your “debt”.
So you have your debt to the chicken farmer. You try to find ways to help him, and he says: I don’t really need anything much, maybe some lumber is the only thing I need. So now you go to the sawmill, get lumber from them, transfer the debt to them. But now you’re in debt with the sawmill, and the cycle continues…
Your debt thing changes exactly nothing, you still need to go around until you find someone who needs your potatoes. It just changes the time at which you need to do it.
People never have just one need, and you can also repay the “debt” with your labor not just other goods. He may say I need lumber, but you could say “I don’t have lumber but I can help around the farm, I can cook you some meals, I can watch your kids, take your cows to pasture, etc.”. If you are a productive member of society you or the person can find some way to repay the debt. If you are utterly useless to them then they won’t give you the chicken or may give it to you as charity, but most people aren’t useless. I can think of ten things around my house that pretty much any able bodied person could do and that would be helpful to me.
Also it doesn’t have to be immediately exchanged, again this is built off trust. Maybe the farmer doesn’t need help now but come harvest time he’ll need some extra hands. Same with the potatoes, he may not need potatoes now but he’ll probably want some eventually.
You can see this reciprocity in a lot of close relationships, especially within families. You may never exchange money with a person but you get stuff for them, make stuff for them and do stuff for them under the assumption that they’ll get you back. It may not completely even out in monetary terms but your fine with it because it simplifies a lot of things.
Yeah, but if you love growing potatoes, but you hate watching the kids, cooking meals, take cows to pasture, it’s so much nicer to just be able to pay in potatoes than needing to do so much shit you don’t like.
No it isn’t. There’s a reason the same concept of assigning value to some agreed upon thing, and then exchanging those things for goods and services has come up in just about every time a civilization gets big enough and advanced enough for bartering to get too complicated.
Everything else that surrounds that core concept is a complexity added on top that isn’t inherently necessary to the core concept of money.
It didn’t happen in Andean civilizations like the inca and they became pretty advanced and were able to move goods across vast distances. They weren’t bartering either, they lived under a sort of communism where the people of a community shared there produce while giving a bit up to the state which would warehouse some of it for hard times and give the rest to nobles.
I don’t think meso American civilization had money either.
The concept of money isn’t natural, it’s just very viral as it spreads across trade routes, so it easily spread to all old world civilizations, which people mistakenly assume is all civilization.
Meso American civilization did have money in the form of cacao beans though, and they were largely producing for exchange (there was even a merchant strata), arguably to a higher degree than even feudal societies in Europe. Money doesn’t have to be slips of paper, it can be just another commodity (for the longest time in the western world those being gold, silver, copper, etc).
It also wasn’t communistic in any way unless you subscribe to the belief that communism is when government does stuff. The “giving a bit up to the state” a tributary system that isn’t unique to Meso America, it’s purpose not being to “distribute according to the need” but crisis management and self-stabilization.
Also, while money as a whole isn’t natural, it develops naturally as a necessity for commodity production.
When I was talking about it’s communist nature I meant more the Andean civilizations. They were communist in the sense that ownership of the means of production (land) was held in common by a community or commune, in the Andean case an ayllu . Labor was organized around reciprocity and obligations to your community, and the state rather than around the market and exchange within the community. You can read more about it here
Also I was wrong about them paying tribute / taxes with produce to the state, they didn’t. They were required to work for the state / nobles a set amount each year as there tribute.
It is my understanding that meso america also had similar communal ownership, and that system is what groups like the zapatistas are harkening back to.
Also, while money as a whole isn’t natural, it develops naturally as a necessity for commodity production
Not necessarily, the inca didn’t have money but they were still able to produce commodities like cloth.
Regardless of what is the main role of money, it still has the trustless characteristics which means that it is playing into the hands of might and machine. The more a society revolves around money, the better the position for might and machine.
In opposition to might, I believe it is better to figure how we become as little dependent on money as possible.
Just note that I am an ancarist, I believe in a society without cars. Or for that matter, any production that would require the structure of the machine. So Id be against asphalt, fertilizers, and sement to mention a few.
I believe in a society without cars. Or for that matter, any production that would require the structure of the machine. So Id be against asphalt, fertilizers, and sement to mention a few.
Sounds like what you are describing is doing away with modernity altogether. And that’s where you lose me and probably most people on the planet. There’s no way I’m going to endorse reverting back subsistence farmers. We already know that doesn’t solve anything. Pre modern civilizations were far from peaceful utopias.
The difference is that we are now much more aware of diverse farming. Moving away from monoculture will strengthen both our ecosystems and humanity. If we cling to monoculture and oil, it will be our downfall.
The point just flew over your head in a 747. You ask the average person in any developed country if they want to give up all modern technology and go be a farmer, they’ll just laugh at you. Try to force them, and that laughing will stop real quick.
Let me ask you specifically. Would you like to live in a planet where you can see the stars at the night sky? Would you like to live in town that is woven together? Where children can freely go outside to play? Where people knock on each others doors to pay a visit? Where grandparents are taken care of by their children? And where you play cards with your friends every night? Where the asphalt is scraped to make room for public gardening of all kinds of food?
Id give up technology immidiately. Especially as my stress levels would be turned down ten notches.
The role of money is not about trust, it’s about simplifying exchanges. So if I’m a potato farmer in need of a chicken for dinner, I can just buy it from the chicken farmer. Without money, I would have to go to the chicken farmer, find out that he needs lumber, go to the sawmill, find out what he needs, and so-on until I find someone along the chain that actually needs my potatoes. That setup may be doable when we’re just talking about potatoes, but how are you going to scale that up and keep track of it amongst the 1000 or so people directly involved in making your car?
No, in a system of trust you’d go to the chicken farmer and say “hey can I have a chicken, I’ll get you back however I can” and he gives you a chicken. Then you try to ways to help him out until you’ve felt you repaid your “debt”. This is how exchange worked before money under tribal systems. Not every exchange has to be transactional, that’s just something capitalism tries to instill in us.
Yes but you’re saying exactly the same thing he’s saying…
So you have your debt to the chicken farmer. You try to find ways to help him, and he says: I don’t really need anything much, maybe some lumber is the only thing I need. So now you go to the sawmill, get lumber from them, transfer the debt to them. But now you’re in debt with the sawmill, and the cycle continues…
Your debt thing changes exactly nothing, you still need to go around until you find someone who needs your potatoes. It just changes the time at which you need to do it.
People never have just one need, and you can also repay the “debt” with your labor not just other goods. He may say I need lumber, but you could say “I don’t have lumber but I can help around the farm, I can cook you some meals, I can watch your kids, take your cows to pasture, etc.”. If you are a productive member of society you or the person can find some way to repay the debt. If you are utterly useless to them then they won’t give you the chicken or may give it to you as charity, but most people aren’t useless. I can think of ten things around my house that pretty much any able bodied person could do and that would be helpful to me.
Also it doesn’t have to be immediately exchanged, again this is built off trust. Maybe the farmer doesn’t need help now but come harvest time he’ll need some extra hands. Same with the potatoes, he may not need potatoes now but he’ll probably want some eventually.
You can see this reciprocity in a lot of close relationships, especially within families. You may never exchange money with a person but you get stuff for them, make stuff for them and do stuff for them under the assumption that they’ll get you back. It may not completely even out in monetary terms but your fine with it because it simplifies a lot of things.
Yeah, but if you love growing potatoes, but you hate watching the kids, cooking meals, take cows to pasture, it’s so much nicer to just be able to pay in potatoes than needing to do so much shit you don’t like.
That’s a myth.
No it isn’t. There’s a reason the same concept of assigning value to some agreed upon thing, and then exchanging those things for goods and services has come up in just about every time a civilization gets big enough and advanced enough for bartering to get too complicated.
Everything else that surrounds that core concept is a complexity added on top that isn’t inherently necessary to the core concept of money.
It didn’t happen in Andean civilizations like the inca and they became pretty advanced and were able to move goods across vast distances. They weren’t bartering either, they lived under a sort of communism where the people of a community shared there produce while giving a bit up to the state which would warehouse some of it for hard times and give the rest to nobles.
I don’t think meso American civilization had money either.
The concept of money isn’t natural, it’s just very viral as it spreads across trade routes, so it easily spread to all old world civilizations, which people mistakenly assume is all civilization.
Meso American civilization did have money in the form of cacao beans though, and they were largely producing for exchange (there was even a merchant strata), arguably to a higher degree than even feudal societies in Europe. Money doesn’t have to be slips of paper, it can be just another commodity (for the longest time in the western world those being gold, silver, copper, etc).
It also wasn’t communistic in any way unless you subscribe to the belief that communism is when government does stuff. The “giving a bit up to the state” a tributary system that isn’t unique to Meso America, it’s purpose not being to “distribute according to the need” but crisis management and self-stabilization.
Also, while money as a whole isn’t natural, it develops naturally as a necessity for commodity production.
When I was talking about it’s communist nature I meant more the Andean civilizations. They were communist in the sense that ownership of the means of production (land) was held in common by a community or commune, in the Andean case an ayllu . Labor was organized around reciprocity and obligations to your community, and the state rather than around the market and exchange within the community. You can read more about it here
Also I was wrong about them paying tribute / taxes with produce to the state, they didn’t. They were required to work for the state / nobles a set amount each year as there tribute.
It is my understanding that meso america also had similar communal ownership, and that system is what groups like the zapatistas are harkening back to.
Not necessarily, the inca didn’t have money but they were still able to produce commodities like cloth.
Regardless of what is the main role of money, it still has the trustless characteristics which means that it is playing into the hands of might and machine. The more a society revolves around money, the better the position for might and machine.
In opposition to might, I believe it is better to figure how we become as little dependent on money as possible.
Just note that I am an ancarist, I believe in a society without cars. Or for that matter, any production that would require the structure of the machine. So Id be against asphalt, fertilizers, and sement to mention a few.
Sounds like what you are describing is doing away with modernity altogether. And that’s where you lose me and probably most people on the planet. There’s no way I’m going to endorse reverting back subsistence farmers. We already know that doesn’t solve anything. Pre modern civilizations were far from peaceful utopias.
The difference is that we are now much more aware of diverse farming. Moving away from monoculture will strengthen both our ecosystems and humanity. If we cling to monoculture and oil, it will be our downfall.
The point just flew over your head in a 747. You ask the average person in any developed country if they want to give up all modern technology and go be a farmer, they’ll just laugh at you. Try to force them, and that laughing will stop real quick.
Let me ask you specifically. Would you like to live in a planet where you can see the stars at the night sky? Would you like to live in town that is woven together? Where children can freely go outside to play? Where people knock on each others doors to pay a visit? Where grandparents are taken care of by their children? And where you play cards with your friends every night? Where the asphalt is scraped to make room for public gardening of all kinds of food?
Id give up technology immidiately. Especially as my stress levels would be turned down ten notches.
i know you didn’t ask me but yes I would like that very very much.