The gap between rich and poor is growing in America. It makes me wonder if we could live in a world without money . How would a society like that function?
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Money allows people like me, with no hunter-gatherer skills, no craftsman skills, and no manual skills (I can't hunt or fish; I can't grow a garden to save my life; I can't build anything; and I'm not physically awesome enough to labor at a task), to exist without being royalty or indigent. I'm able to trade my soft skills (writing and programming) for credits (called dollars in my country), which I can then give to someone else who has the products of hard skills (the frying pan I need to cook my dinner).
My skills aren't easily bartered to my inter-local group, but they are very easily bartered through a middleman to an extra-local or remote group. Without money and the system thereof, people like me would die off.
Ask Gene Roddenberry, the Federation supposedly operated without money.
A perfect Communist State can also operate without money, people work to produce goods, and receive goods to live on. Note that every member has to agree to this and actually work.
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A society without needs could function without money.
Consider a group of people living on an island. The island has a large quantity of fresh drinkable water, many natural structures that provide shelter, plants with leaves that fit as clothing with no modifications needed, an abundance of fruit and vegetables that grow everywhere, and a huge stock of fish in a landlocked pool (so all that is required to extract them is to scoop some out).
On this island, money would serve no purpose.
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The gap between rich and poor is growing in America. It makes me wonder if we could live in a world without money . How would a society like that function?
We lived that way for about 95% of the history of our species. Egalitarianism is, at least in my opinion, impossible once you abandon the economy of band level society.
There is an argument that adopting agriculture and all the successive ills inherent to civilization was the worst mistake in the history of the human race.
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Perhaps we will find out soon. With the current level of technology evolving at a rate greater than that of our species, it may soon be possible that there will not be enough jobs left for our country. We already have robot cars. Visit a Wal Mart (incidentally one of the largest economies in the world), and find a self checkout lane. That takes care of at least a percentage of non-skilled labor, as well as semi-skilled (in the case of driving/piloting). And all without science fiction level AI.
Without jobs, there is no influx of money to consumers. Consumers not spending money means an end to production. So far we are at a level where society, economics, expense, and a few other factors prevent a technological takeover, but eventually the cost is outweighed by the savings. I say this not as a paranoid ranting, but by basic laws of how Capitalism operates. Or rather the mantra of "Cheaper, faster, more". I don't condemn it, it is how we operate. So WHEN the technology replaces a certain percentage of workers, there has to be a fundamental shift in how we, as an economy, operate. Will we eliminate money, allotting each citizen a stipend of goods and services? Will we devise a new enticement to goad people to new business/scientific/whatever ventures? Will we collapse under the weight of political inertia? Will we subsidize the common (ex)worker and otherwise remain much the same? And what of other economies as ours affects them?
An interesting posit. I have no real answers. I doubt anyone does. If history teaches us anything, though, I would wager that we do nothing about it until it is already too late, and then changing as little as possible.
And all that without the magic need killing machine spontaneously creating whatever we need (re: Star Trek's replicators...)
Ask Gene Roddenberry, the Federation supposedly operated without money.
A perfect Communist State can also operate without money, people work to produce goods, and receive goods to live on. Note that every member has to agree to this and actually work.
I don't think the Federation operated without money. In fact, I know it had money just because of that Ferengi bar in DS9. I think it was stated that collecting money was no longer the drive of humans?
I think the Federation itself was without money and with money, depending on the time, and location.
It was (effectively) post-scarcity, and thus (effectively) money-free, as money was worthless for all the things that we use it for today.
In certain segments or at certain times, however, there was still the requirement of compensating a worker for their work.
The Ferengi in specific were noted as a still-money-based racial culture, who interacted with the Federation in a desire to acquire their mineral resources through "fair" (for broad definitions thereof) trade and commerce, as the Ferengi people were neither post-scarcity, nor "enlightened" as the Federation.
What's more, the bar you refer to in DS9 is hardly what could be thought of as primarily Federation space. Sure, yeah, technically the Federation was "in charge" of DS9. But they orbited someone else's planet, had two other non-Federation cultures besides clashing and blending in the local station (three if you count hyper-advanced-yet-distantly-separated worm-hole entities), and had constant challenges from malevolent forces that lived, like, right over there (as opposed to most of the Federation, which held most of their territory rather easily and well in that period of time).
I'm a bit fuzzier on the earlier parts (i.e. the Original Series time), but by Next Gen and DS9, I'm pretty certain the Federation proper had no need for currency, but the people and creatures they interacted with certainly did have that need.
Maybe Federation Earth had no money, but definitely many other societies like the Ferengi had money.
A wise man can hear profit in the wind.
Maybe Federation Earth had no money, but definitely many other societies like the Ferengi had money.
Exactly.
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Maybe Federation Earth had no money, but definitely many other societies like the Ferengi had money.
And they were quite obviously included as a contrast to the Utopian vision of the series. I actually think of Utopian idealism as the hallmark of the entire setting -- I was a little disappointed to see where things have gone since.
This thread is digressing a bit.
To feed the digression (The Federation's economy) -
Star Trek during the Roddenbury years was strictly attempting to show humanity in the best light, and therefore had no greed or need of money as current society does.
The writers had problems with finding alternate means to show drama, and after Gene Roddenbury passed away, the writers were more free to add "outmoded" human failings as drama motivations (as evidenced during DS9, and the last few seasons of Next Gen).
To bring this back to current economics - we could, yet money is a great control mechanism. Why would those in power get rid of it? Only revolt, or an abundant need to alter the control mechanism would change this.
Technology advances will one day force people to rethink the control paradigm - say when cheap fusion is available and everyone could make mini-nukes in their backyard, how much worse could it be if we had teleporters and FTL drives?
option one - humanity behaves as Roddenbury predicts and improves itself. Less likely, yet has the best chance of survival.
Option two - humanity lives under the heel of a totalitarian dystopia. Very likely, yet just delays extinction.
Option three - extinction - Either humanity, or the tools of humanity destroys our existence.
Maybe Federation Earth had no money, but definitely many other societies like the Ferengi had money.And they were quite obviously included as a contrast to the Utopian vision of the series. I actually think of Utopian idealism as the hallmark of the entire setting -- I was a little disappointed to see where things have gone since.
I understand, but unfortunately, I am not a utopian.
Money allows for discretionary purchasing - having things we want rather than what we need.
It may be the root of all evil, but without it we'd all be pretty bored, I'd bet.
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There are several signs, throughout the shows, that the Federation operated primarily as a barter economy with secondary currency systems tacked on.
The issue of the Federation having no currency doesn't even add up within the shows: Credits, replicator chips, and latinum are all forms of currency seen in use. One thing that people tend to forget is that currency being divorced from both the value of a certain commodity is a very recent thing in human history.
People, in economic discussions of both real life and games, often bring up that a currency must not have an actual use value outside of being currency while ignoring that human civilization operated with currency having a use value outside of currency for most of its history. Salt and gold are two prime examples of this happening.
So, I do not believe the topic question is necessarily what should be discussed. I don't think it is a case of a society being possible, as a tiny scale society can exist that way, but if civilization can exist without currency. I'm not certain it could.
That's easy. Currency is that medium which is given in exchange in lieu of goods or services on the understanding that medium will be tradable for goods and services from other agents who accept that medium.
Account for theft or extortion, and this definition becomes a cruel joke (but still accurate).
I'd say that reputation is a mental/social rarity. There is only so much personal reputation one can actually have. And further, there are only so many people that can have exceedingly large reputations before it all begins to fade out in the wash of names.
What was the use value of gold before electricity?
What was the use value of gold before electricity?
What LazarX said. It was also used as a construction material by at least one culture, specifically in the design of specialized ornaments to top architecture. I've heard there's a few other historical architectural uses for it, but never investigated.
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What was the use value of gold before electricity?
Aesthetics.
Soft, workable, bright metal, ideal for creating jewelry.
This in an era where worn personal displays of wealth were considerably more important than they are today. (Maybe? i don't know about that)
But seriously, the answer is "Shiney!" and you can make delicate things out of it relatively easily.
What's unique about gold is that you can spread it thinly to get that gilded effect. Of course the problem with using it to top architecture is that you will have people trying to steal it.What was the use value of gold before electricity?What LazarX said. It was also used as a construction material by at least one culture, specifically in the design of specialized ornaments to top architecture. I've heard there's a few other historical architectural uses for it, but never investigated.
Something which the Egyptians found out the hard way...
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Money (in the form of coins or currency) is a transitional means of exchange. Prior to its invention, people bartered items that had no standard value. Exchanges could get complicated when person A wanted something that person B had, but person B wanted nothing from person A -- but he did want something from person C, who in turn did want something from person A. Money enabled these people to break down the barter exchanges into separate purchases.
At the other end, it is easy to envision a near future economy in which money is recorded in computers but not physically carried around -- even today some of us are close to that point. The most rational way that the UFP economy on Star Trek might work would be for all internal transactions to be recorded automatically, and for general living the amounts involved would be too small relative to average personal wealth for most people to care about keeping track of the numbers.
Except that in a post scarcity economy like star trek unintentionaly hints at money is rediculous for anything smaller than, I don't know, line items in a budget.
When supply is essentially infinite the price curve breaks and charging for things becomes rediculous.
Star Trek is not a post scarcity economy. The Federation and all other societies still have major dependencies on resources that can't be duplicated by shoving dirt into a replicator.
There seems to be this strange belief among Trekkies that the authors of Star Trek have actually proposed a working economy instead of making empty statements with no actual basis behind them.
I think the idea is that citizens in everyday life have no need for pocket money. Beyond that the economy of the federation is rather vague.
Interesting points to conciser include:
Do you have to pay to eat at Joe Sisko's restaurant on Earth?
How does Joe Sisko lay claim to the land/building of his restaurant.
Can a private citizen of the federation acquire a ship without trading outside the federation? If so, how?
How does Ben Sisko acquire his collection of African art?
On Farpoint, Beverly Crusher "charges" a bolt of fabric to her Enterprise account. What the hell is that?