Abolish Money!

[Glazer]

Protesters of the G-20 in London today are chanting "Abolish Money".
This boggles the mind. No mater what your beef is with the G-20 or the WMF or the World Bank. No one is going to listen to anything you have to say after hearing this chant. This has got to be the most self destructive slogan ever.

And the riots and vandalism every year don't help either.

[Oliveloaf]

The only person who would support an end to money is a person without money.

That is amazingly un-thought out.

But if you're money poor, odds are you're commodity and skill poor, too.

Killing coins isn't really going to fix anything.

[Sarahfeena]

Protesters of the G-20 in London today are chanting "Abolish Money".
This boggles the mind. No mater what your beef is with the G-20 or the WMF or the World Bank. No one is going to listen to anything you have to say after hearing this chant. This has got to be the most self destructive slogan ever.

Yeah, I think I'd rather keep mine, but thanks!

I've never understood these protests...they are alway chaotic and poorly planned. Not a good image to put in the minds of folks when you're advocating a major paradigm shift.

[parzival]

I misread the sign. I thought they hated simians.

Not that I'd support them for that, either.

[kenner116]

Poor Eddie Money, he did nothing to deserve this.

[Sarahfeena]

Poor Eddie Money, he did nothing to deserve this.

Oh, he's fine...he's got his two tickets.

[Hatshepsut]

Personally, I would like to see an interviewer from a major news outlet ask these idiots to demonstrate (no pun intended) that they have a clue about how economies work - what are sub-prime mortgages and what role, precisely, did they play in the current economic crisis? What is the definition of comparative advantage? If globalism is a bad thing, can you list 3 countries whose GDP has declined over the past decade and explain the mechanism by which globalism has caused this? Make them give basic definitions and/or ask substantive questions that can't be answered by empty rhetoric.

My guess is that most of them would appear dumber than toad spittle.

What really slays me is that the people they claim to speak on behalf of - the poor - would suffer horrendously if the protestors ever actually got their way.

[Hellestal]

You know, I can almost understand a desire to wipe out traditional notions of property. Not that I agree with it, but at least I kind of get a feel for where they're coming from. It's a potentially honest opinion that just comes from not having thought out how people respond to incentives.

But wiping out money? That's just plain stoopid.

[lust4life]

I believe that many of these people are recreational "Alternativeists",always spouting off about destroying the system and how they're Anarchists etc. to make themselves sound mysterious and rebellious to naive members of the opposite sex; while claiming welfare made possible by the very system that they claim to hate.

Some of them I'm certain get off on violence and vandalism but wanting to believe themselves a cut above soccer hooligans proffess to carry out their actions "For the Cause".

And of course at the lower end of the ladder you'll always have people who just enjoy being "Holier then thou" and lecturing other people about the poor,the planet etc.but who never seem themselves to make any significant sacrifices to remedy the problems.

You know the sort they'll preach to you about the evils of the car and then you find that they failed their driving test half a dozen times before they gave up trying.

I'm not saying that all, or even the majority of people who campaign on issues like this are in these categories but I AM saying that a fair proportion of the more vociferous attention seeking protestors are.
(And yes I do get the irony of my describing protestors as attention seeking,but you know what I mean)

I myself consider myself to be a Green issues supporter,but thats because I have no choice but to be so,not because I think it might let some girl let me put my hand in her Bra.

[ivan astikov]

Isn't society already trying to abolish 'ready money' though? Security guards don't like delivering it, banks have to have extraordinary measures to store it, employers prefer not to give it straight to their employees, the majority of people in the developed nations use credit cards... aren't these people chanting "Abolish Money! "just trying to hasten the inevitable?

[EthelMercaptan]

I've never understood these protests...they are alway chaotic and poorly planned.

Hey, they're anarchists - structure and order are what they're railing against, man!

I heard the Procrastinator's Society was planning to show up, but they'll probably not going to get there till next week.

Also, I was pretty sure the Prevaricator's Club were coming, but they said they were sorry if they gave the wrong impression.

The Apathist's Party couldn't be bothered.

[Exy]

I don't think people like this even try to actually understand what they're railing about. There's just a certain personality type in which people feel some vague rage at whatever they perceive to be authority figures. It doesn't matter what the System is, or what alternatives exist, we just all have to get together and SMASH THE SYSTEM.

[ivan astikov]

The funny thing is, the bigger these summits get, ie G40; G8O; G120... the less reason there is for people to be protesting. After all, surely G20 is less globally elitist than G8?

[Glazer]

Could it be that TPTB organize these protest every year to distract from what's going on at the summit. Using the very people who dislike what they are doing the most.

[OtakuLoki]

Isn't society already trying to abolish 'ready money' though? Security guards don't like delivering it, banks have to have extraordinary measures to store it, employers prefer not to give it straight to their employees, the majority of people in the developed nations use credit cards... aren't these people chanting "Abolish Money! "just trying to hasten the inevitable?

I don't believe that the shift from currency or coins to electronic funds is actually a shift away from money, though. It's just a change in how the money is exchanged. No one has lost their shirt because they found their currency worthless, when they had to shift it all over to electronic money. Nor is anyone working for barter, or even working to the best of their ability, to receive sufficient to their needs.

Even if all exchanges start happening electronically the economies of most of the world wouldn't change at all. Money would still be there. Just more obviously an abstraction than it is, now.

[ivan astikov]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

[Exy]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

Huh?

[sturmhauke]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

What do you propose exactly? Do you envision a central warehouse containing the goods they need? That's less efficient than giving them a paycheck and letting them buy their own stuff.

[ivan astikov]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

Huh?

I'm just wondering why services that shouldn't have anything to do with 'profit margins' and 'tightening budgets', and most need to be free from money interference, can't be run on some scheme that doesn't have to worry about financial concerns, enabling them to get the best from its workforce.

[ivan astikov]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

What do you propose exactly? Do you envision a central warehouse containing the goods they need? That's less efficient than giving them a paycheck and letting them buy their own stuff.

No, they'd just have a govt. issued credit card which allowed them to use it anywhere and if they were found abusing it after a months tally, they had it suspended, and could no longer get the little luxuries they'd been entitled to.

If we can't trust our police, nurses and fire service to be considerate with their usage, what chance have we got?

[Glazer]

[quote=ivan astikov]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

What do you propose exactly? Do you envision a central warehouse containing the goods they need? That's less efficient than giving them a paycheck and letting them buy their own stuff.

No, they'd just have a govt. issued credit card which allowed them to use it anywhere and if they were found abusing it after a months tally, they had it suspended, and could no longer get the little luxuries they'd been entitled to.

If we can't trust our police, nurses and fire service to be considerate with their usage, what chance have we got?[/quote:g2xp2tch]

How would that not be money?

[Chimera]

It's the logic of people who want everything to be good but don't want to bother to have to think it out and deal with how it would work in real life. It's a wooly-headed "but I don't want to think about it, someone make it work!" way of thinking.

I used to work with a guy who expoused Anarchy. No government, no money, no corporations, no law. Everyone would live in small villages, do what they liked to do, and everyone would share what they made so that everyone had everything the needed to live. If you wanted something more than the basics, you could trade your labor to someone else for their labor, like say, working for the glass blower so that he'd make you something.

Of course, silly me, I had to poke all sorts of holes in it and make him angry.

Ok, I said, so what happens if one village has a famine and no one can get enough food?
Other villages would give them food, knowing they'd get it back when they needed it.
Ok, so a whole region has a famine, what happens?
Another region gives them food
So how does it get there, with no roads or technology, since vehicle manufacture and road building require governments and corporations?
Ummm....

Ok, another question. What happens when there's a serial killer?
People will eventually figure it out and force him out of their village
To prey on every other village?
No, they'll have to warn those villages so that they don't let him in either.
So then he just wanders around killing people, and no one does anything but try to not let him in their villages?
(unlikely explanation of how people like that will die out without support)

Ok, so how do we find enough room for all these small villages with over 6 billion people in the world?
What do you mean? There's plenty of empty space!

The man just had never really thought about what happens when the reality of Human Nature hits the fantasy of his Ideology. Much like how reality crushed the ideal of Communism.

[Glazer]

Welcome back Chimera, missed ya for a wile.

[Chimera]

Heh. On Saturday a young guy who sits about 6' from me went on a tear with me and my boss about the Federal Reserve Bank and how he was trying to put together a petition to abolish it and wanted to bring it into work to have us all sign it.

Um, no. No thanks.

[sturmhauke]

No, they'd just have a govt. issued credit card which allowed them to use it anywhere and if they were found abusing it after a months tally, they had it suspended, and could no longer get the little luxuries they'd been entitled to.

If we can't trust our police, nurses and fire service to be considerate with their usage, what chance have we got?

How would that not be money?

Also, why should we add a layer of bureaucracy to monitor government employees' spending habits? What is the possible benefit of that?

[Sarahfeena]

[quote=ivan astikov]

I know 'cost of living' is meant to be factored into wages, but wouldn't people in vital services like the police, fire brigade, hospital staff, etc. be better served by them being allowed to have anything they need without having to worry about pay?

What do you propose exactly? Do you envision a central warehouse containing the goods they need? That's less efficient than giving them a paycheck and letting them buy their own stuff.

No, they'd just have a govt. issued credit card which allowed them to use it anywhere and if they were found abusing it after a months tally, they had it suspended, and could no longer get the little luxuries they'd been entitled to.

If we can't trust our police, nurses and fire service to be considerate with their usage, what chance have we got?[/quote:146ta44c] First you were talking about needs, now you are talking about "little luxuries." What kind of luxuries do you mean? Who decides what's appropriate and what's abuse? How will you account for the fact that different people choose to spend their money on different kinds of things? Let's say you think that $100 a week is a reasonable food budget. What if I want to spend only $50 on food, and spend the rest on my hobby of deep sea diving or coin collecting or some such? Is having a hobby a "little luxury?" Is traveling a "little luxury?" What if I want to go on an African safari on vacation instead of the Wisconsin Dells? Who decides whether I deserve such a trip, or if it's "abuse?" What if I have much more luxurious tastes than the next guy? Or, take the example of my husband and I, who live in an old house. We spend a ton of money at Home Depot, which another family who lives in a newer house doesn't have to spend. Are you going to tell me that we have to live in a different house, or are you going to tell us that we have to let it fall down around our ears?

My point being that you shouldn't put these folks in the position of having to be considerate with their usage. Why should they have to worry about getting cut off every time they want to spend a few dollars? It's much more considerate of them to allow them to budget their salary the way they wish to.

Not to mention the fact that done your way, you aren't paying what the job is worth, you are paying what you think the person's lifestyle ought to be. That seems fraught with unfairness right there.

[Exy]

Wait, is Ivan saying he thinks firefighters and police officers shouldn't be paid, but instead a magic debit card that will buy them anything they want, and the government just picks up the tab?

He can't possibly be serious if that's what he's saying.

[Sarahfeena]

Wait, is Ivan saying he thinks firefighters and police officers shouldn't be paid, but instead a magic debit card that will buy them anything they want, and the government just picks up the tab?

He can't possibly be serious if that's what he's saying.

I think that's what he's saying.

Ok, so how do we find enough room for all these small villages with over 6 billion people in the world?
What do you mean? There's plenty of empty space!

Of course there is! My village would like this nice piece of land near a reliable water source, where the climate is temperate, and there is lots of fertile land so food will grow without our having to worry about it too much. Your village may have the desert. Thank you!

[DeadlyAccurate]

I used to work with a guy who expoused Anarchy. No government, no money, no corporations, no law. Everyone would live in small villages, do what they liked to do, and everyone would share what they made so that everyone had everything the needed to live. If you wanted something more than the basics, you could trade your labor to someone else for their labor, like say, working for the glass blower so that he'd make you something.

I love it when people think we should do something like this because they don't think about how people actually are, they think about how they'd like them to be. They think we live in a world of rainbow-pooping unicorns and donuts falling from the sky.

Another question for guys like him:

What happens when one guy gets it in his head that he can take everyone else's stuff for himself if he intimidates and bullies them? And then goes on and takes the next village's stuff? And the next. Suddenly, everyone is under one man's rule. Again. Except you didn't get to choose.

[ivan astikov]

What happens when one guy gets it in his head that he can take everyone else's stuff for himself if he intimidates and bullies them? And then goes on and takes the next village's stuff? And the next. Suddenly, everyone is under one man's rule. Again. Except you didn't get to choose.

Isn't that how kings, queens and rulers in general got their wealth and power in the first place? It hasn't seemed to work out so bad historically.

Oh, and I've dropped my dope-induced plan to give all employees of vital public services a free tab that they can be trusted to use responsibly.

[DeadlyAccurate]

Isn't that how kings, queens and rulers in general got their wealth and power in the first place? It hasn't seemed to work out so bad historically.

That's my point. It will always happen. No idealistic commune society can survive once it grows past a certain point, because humans don't act like automatons. And while it usually works out fine in the long run, it often sucks for the people who have to live during that time.

It's the same with the idiotic "abolish money" folks. They don't seem to understand that money is the natural evolution of trade. First comes the bartering of goods for goods (1 chicken for 1 loaf of bread). Then is the trading of some commodity that people find valuable (like salt or gold) because it's easier. Then comes a standardized rate of exchange. Then that commodity gets replaced by an even easier method of transporting the funds (like paper currency). And now we're seeing the next step, the eventual elimination of even paper currency.

(It's been a long time since business school, so I apologize if I left out something).

[Exy]

And while it usually works out fine in the long run, it often sucks for the people who have to live during that time.

That time being, what, like 10,000 years? The local strongman still rules in a lot of places. Only in some parts of the world has it ended up "working out fine", and that involved thousands of years of people fighting against tyranny. If we ever went back to anarchy, it would just mean having to go through all that intervening misery again. Over the long term anarchy is not merely unworkable, it's impossible.

[Chimera]

Over the long term anarchy is not merely unworkable, it's impossible.

I think the word is "unpossible". :wink:

Pretty much my point with these folks, same with the Ideal of communism that by giving extreme control over the minutae of everyone's life to the government, this will somehow lead to a perfect socialist state in which the government simply withers away and everyone does exactly what is perfect and necessary.

Because as we all know;
1> People will always do what is right in every circumstance, and
2> People with absolute power will always ensure that it is used for the greatest good, and
3> Organizations based on power will naturally "wither away" and devolve that power back to the people they took it away from (usually by force).

[TheFlame]

Over the long term anarchy is not merely unworkable, it's impossible.

I think the word is "unpossible". :wink:

Pretty much my point with these folks, same with the Ideal of communism that by giving extreme control over the minutae of everyone's life to the government, this will somehow lead to a perfect socialist state in which the government simply withers away and everyone does exactly what is perfect and necessary.

Because as we all know;
1> People will always do what is right in every circumstance, and
2> People with absolute power will always ensure that it is used for the greatest good, and
3> Organizations based on power will naturally "wither away" and devolve that power back to the people they took it away from (usually by force).

Totally agree with both of you. However, clearly some people - a sizeable minority - must believe this or something like it. I find that fascinating.

[Chimera]

I think it's that busy-body "someone has to be able to force these other people to do right" attitude we've had since we came down from the trees.

In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzynytzn (sp?) talks about all the party faithful who ended up in the gulag like everyone else, but had this "this is all a mistake and I will soon be released" attitude. Which would be called Denial.

It's always those other people who need to be forced to act properly, and whatever we do to them is fine. Even horrific things. But WE of course are good people, and it's either completely unjustified, or it's some kind of mistake.

[Chimera]

But that's getting off track for the OP.

Both the anarchist and the communists have a mistaken understanding of the nature of Humanity and believe that we can somehow get people to play well together in an ideal society. Part and parcel of both sides is a critical misunderstanding of the role this fantasy called "money" plays in Human society and order.

They don't seem to understand that money is the natural evolution of trade. First comes the bartering of goods for goods (1 chicken for 1 loaf of bread). Then is the trading of some commodity that people find valuable (like salt or gold) because it's easier. Then comes a standardized rate of exchange. Then that commodity gets replaced by an even easier method of transporting the funds (like paper currency). And now we're seeing the next step, the eventual elimination of even paper currency.

Without a State of some kind, there is no Money, which is nothing more than an easily transportable and easily convertible manner of exchanging goods and services.

[Glazer]

There always has been and always will be a state of some kind. Even if that state is extended family. Just as there will always be money. Even if it's just granting and owing of favors. It was like this even before we came down out of the trees.

[Chimera]

But the real trick is that the larger the scale - of human networking and populace - the greater the need for a solid and dependable convertible currency. Local currency doesn't mean sqaut at a distance. Big round coins can't be hauled around the world and don't mean shit when you get them there. There's only so much gold and silver around, and one man's valuable stone may just be another man's shiny rock.

Small scale, bartering is more efficient. Large scale, value needs a method of conversion and transportation.

And dammit, but those chimps may be able to trade meat for pussy, but women these days don't go for it like they used to! (Had to work that in somehow!)

[Chimera]

I think the real interesting "where the rubber meets the road" moment with some of those protesters would be to suggest that they need to spend 1/2 hour cleaning the bus as "barter" for their bus ride. See how fast they cough up real money!