Can a money-less civilization exist?

Great Debates
1

I’d like to add that I mean a society that offers personal freedom, advanced technology, and can support the material needs of its members. This would preclude the types of societies that existed before the invention of money, as well as societies that exist within other civilizations that provide needed technology or security. For example, prisons and monasteries may be nearly money-less, but not the societies that spawn or maintain them.

I’d also like to add that I mean a large society. There have been some successful experiments in (voluntary) communism. But, the vast majority of communes quietly disappear as the most industrious among them leave, tired of the company of those who cannot or will not contribute. Others find that more formal systems of social safety nets are more effective at providing for the old, ill, or infirm.

All of the proposed or attempted money-less societies seem to have suffered from an ignorance of human nature or economics. While small numbers of people may agree to cooperate in good faith, at least for a while, larger societies will inevitably have lazy, dishonest, or outright hostile people who must be kept in check by incentives and threats that are credible.

The question is, of course, economic in nature. And “that dismal science” has been defined before as “attempting to answer the question, ‘How do individuals and groups deal with scarcity? I.E. the fact that virtually all resources are finite in quantity and people’s desires for them are practically infinite.’”. So, the answer, if there is one, is that money cannot be dispensed with until a “post-scarcity economy” has been realized. Yet in so many ways, we already live in a post-scarcity economy . . . at least most of us are fortunate enough to do so. But, in most cases, when we no longer fret over a roof to shield us from the weather, a steady supply of food to stave off hunger, a stable currency to procure these for us . . . we simply want MORE. If there were sufficient yachts for every citizen to have one (never mind how they get built in the first place with no financial incentive for manufacture), some people would insist on hoarding two or three, just so they could have more than [someone else].

Thanks in advance Teeming Millions! I’m about to turn in for the night, so I trust any insomniacs wanting to hash this out won’t be offended by my absence until the morrow.

2

the only way it could happen is if you took a bunch of babies and started a society on a another planet millions of miles from earth because that would be the only way you could start over with all the social and mental engineering youd have to do for it to work

it couldn’t happen on earth because of greed and desire are too built in almost every society on earth

Youd have to train people not to want more than they need… train people to want to help others with out anything in return … even a thank you heck youd even have to train people that having everything exactly the same as the next guy is a good thing because something as simple as someone having a tv that gets one more channel than the next guy could blow it all to hell

it would take millennia for it to get to a acceptable stage …

3

It’s the kind of question which seems answerable at first sight but I don’t think is.

If you take away money as we know it, then people would use some other medium of exchange, such as gold. If you say only bartering is allowed, then people will find the thing that most people are willing to barter for (again gold, or gasoline or phone credit, say). Everything would end up pretty much the same, though more inefficient.

If we’re saying “Oh imagine humans that don’t try to barter goods and service” then that’s already a big leap from humans currently, so we would lose all basis to draw conclusions based on human behaviour. I could assert that that kind of hypothetical, non-bartering human has the “right stuff” to make a civilization through just cooperation.

4

I don’t agree with your definition of “post-scarcity economy”.

There’s a series of sci-fi novels that are worth considering in this regard: The Culture, by Iain M. Banks. These books take place in (well, on the periphery of) a society with very very very advanced technology. Every job is automated. Even the one you just thought of. And that one. And that one, too. There are enough hyper-intelligent machines running around with such a staggeringly high manufacturing capacity that providing tens of trillions of humans with an opulent material standard of living is practically an afterthought. There is no currency. From each human’s perspective, it’s like having very wealthy, indulgent parents; any halfway-reasonable request will be fulfilled. If someone wants three yachts, they can have them, but so can everyone else.

That is what a post-scarcity society looks like. It’s one where our principles of economics break down because the provision of goods is trivially easy. I don’t it’s physically impossible, but we are at best several centuries away from it.

Without such Sufficiently Advanced technology, I doubt that a money-less civilization could exist.

5

Your “never mind” hits upon the crux of the issue. How do people get what they want, without having to compensate others for providing these goods and services? Why should the producers provide everyone with their needs, including those who don’t produce anything, without themselves getting anything in return? What are the non-producers counting on? I’d change your question to “Should a money-less civilization exist?”

6

There’s no such thing as a perfect post-scarcity economy. Something will always be scarce, even if it’s just the right to live next to the cool people, or going to a live concert by that one musician.

So there will be some kind of currency, even if it doesn’t quite resemble money as we know it. Cory Doctorow has the “whuffie” in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which is a bit like likes/dislikes, Reddit/Slashdot karma, etc. Popular and productive people will gain karma and others don’t. Everybody gets a meal and a roof over their head, but not everyone can do every single thing they want.

There are big segments of the economy where money might as well be karma points, because it has no direct relationship with productivity–musicians, sports players, YouTubers, etc. earn based on their popularity and talent, not based on how much productive value they contribute to the world. In a post-scarcity economy, everyone will be in the same situation. I don’t think it’ll be an unrecognizable world.

7

Why does Linux exist? Some people can produce far out of their proportion to their ability to consume, and are happy to “donate” their excess productivity to others.

Right now, this is only really possible with software, since it’s the only thing that has approximately zero cost to replicate. A nominal initial investment (in time) can lead to billions of dollars in created value.

Most of the post-scarcity hypotheticals are based on automated factories, asteroid mining, nanotechnology, and similar technologies that allow material processing for virtually zero cost. The only real cost would be the upfront design, but as we can see in software, there will be a fair number of people designing things for free just because. For-profit stuff will still exist (just as Windows and Mac exist), but they won’t be absolutely necessary.

8

And “house” work, from SAHParents to free babysitting, free tutoring, free… in the US not so much, but there are many countries where services such as short-term babysitting or tutoring are viewed as part of the favors economy, not the money economy; there are also many where the role of grandmothers is enormous. The favors economy may not have zero cost to replicate but it can be huge.

But, favors are their own currency and you always have to be careful about those you may end up paying twice: in favors back, and money.

9

Possessions are a part of our wealth. If I could have whatever I want from the replicator, I would have very little need to store stuff. The camping equipment I own represents my ability to camp comfortably in the future. The back half of my closet holds clothes I need only once every year or even less often.

In replicator world, the only things I would keep around are things that have some nostalgic value or that I use a lot. I might even prefer to digitize a cool Halloween costume that I hand made, rather than keep it. There are strong emotional ties to things currently, and that would need to change to get past a money based rationing system.

Wealth is security - the more money I have in the bank, the less I will be affected by something like a suddenly broken down car or emergency house repair. Replicator world would deal with most of this issue.

Wealth is also prestige and power. Some people seem to be motivated to get wealthy because that confers on them power - the power to fire people, the power to build a new wing on the hospital. Some want the fame and adoration. I have no idea what might replace this - for instance, we might try to tell the sociopaths that want all this power “no”, and the non-sociopaths can just try to be famous or whatever… But this is something that would have to change to get away from money.

Burning Man, is (ideally) decommodified, meaning there is no trade (barter or sales) at the event, except for Ice and Coffee, and the service of getting your RV tank pumped out. You can see already that there are limits to this no money, no barter system. We call it a “gift economy”, because we all bring enough to take care of ourselves, and something extra to share, or “gift”. This is only possible because a significant number of people put in a lot of work and money(outside the event) to make it happen. This is not sustainable, but it does provide a space to experiment with changing a few “default world” settings.

It turns out that among us, being a giver, helper, leader, good friend, teacher, craftier, grunt worker, creative genius, budding artist willing to take a chance, or similar is the key to social success. Sure, some people get that recognition because they show up with lots of cash or are pretty or are a really good DJ*, but many people get it by doing things that help make the event better - in whatever way they can.

I have very little money, but I am wealthy in ways that economics can’t measure, because of the work I have put in to my community. That part is similar to many people’s experience in fraternal clubs and churches, we Burners are just more explicit about this aspect because of our ethic about decommodification.

Burning Man is one model of a post-scarcity society that is getting one week of serious study a year. Recent experience suggests it will be dusty, but really densely packed with some amazing art.
*At The Burn, there is a lot of competition among DJs.

10

True enough, though software is a bit different in that there’s (potentially) a huge multiplication factor. You can only babysit a few kids at a time, but one person can write software used by millions. And once written, it exists forever, able to be built upon by others and expanded even further.

Other types of design, from cars to meals, could be the same way, but are currently limited by the cost of materials and labor. Magically reduce those to zero, though, and suddenly everything is like software.

Regardless, you have a point that a favors economy will still exist. I suspect that there are some times and places where this has already been the dominant economic system, such as periods of massive hyperinflation.

11

Thanks for the responses, all! Granted, I was being a bit generous with my definition of “post scarcity”. My point was that even when everyone has everything they NEED, they will WANT more. If they get everything that they knew they wanted, they would find that they still want more. It isn’t necessary that all people, or even most, think this way. It would be sufficiently disruptive for a significant minority to do so.

Gold, favors, abstracted “credits” and other such entities are basically money. Barter is technically not money, but serves the same economic function, just with less efficiency.

I forgot that I meant that we aren’t exceeding our present (approximate) tech level. One could imagine a much more advanced technical civilization in which all necessary work is performed by automation, knowledge and administrative work as well via AGI, in a manner similar to the industrial work and labor of robots. But, while humans are the masters (or pets) of the machines that do all the work, wouldn’t the machines require an economy? How do factories determine how many units to produce? What of the possibility that all factories cannot simultaneously be provided feedstock? How is production, both input and output, quantified?

To be perfectly honest, I’ve given the whole matter a lot of thought and my answer would be that a moneyless society is not possible, insofar as I think of “society” and “humanity”. But, I would be most fascinated to hear of a viable theory on one that could exist and I’m aware there are a lot of people out there much smarter than myself.

12

nightshadea, That’s fine, but then these people wouldn’t live in a society as we know it. Would they remain in the stone age forever? If not, how would they rise above it without trade?

13

Probably not, then. Money is just an abstract after all, representing labor…I do work and need an easy way to exchange my labor with someone else who does something else I want. Even assuming we get to the point where all goods are ‘free’ to manufacture (i.e. we have unlimited access to resources and energy and high levels of automation such that it takes zero man hours to produce a given product or food stuff), services are still going to be in demand and there needs to be something we can use to exchange service for service. ‘Money’ would be that medium. I don’t think an advanced civilization could exist without something to use as an abstract for a medium of exchange between people…even if that means ‘money’ is likes or approves or thumbs up or something like that.

As it has in the past I expect our concept of what is or isn’t ‘money’ will continue to evolve in unexpected ways, and what we pay for will also shift (again, as it has), but that we will need something is, to me, a given. I can’t imagine a human society, no matter how technological or advanced, that doesn’t have something that can act as an abstract medium for people to be able to exchange between them.

14

A system that tracks your “thumbs-up” and allows you to exchange those thumbs-up for goods and services would be a form of money.

All money is, is a way to facilitate the exchange of favors. You do me the favor of building me a car, and I’ll do you the favor of writing you some computer software. Except I don’t need to do you that favor personally, I’ll do that favor for other people, and they’ll owe me a favor, and I’ll use the favors they owe me to trade for the favor of building me that car that I want.

That’s all money is. We’ve invented some sophisticated ways of thinking about money over the past 4000 years since the first priest marked down that Thag the peasant had delivered the basket of wheat he owed to the temple. But it’s still the same thing.

Of course not all exchanges are commodified this way, plenty of times I wash the dishes at home without demanding that the wife and kids pay me for my time. But complex transactions become much simpler through the mechanism of money. And note that money doesn’t have to involve physical tokens, people have used systems of credit and debt for thousands of years simply by writing down who owed who what. And in the modern world very few of our monetary transactions involve physical tokens that represent money.

15

Since I am personally convinced that the systems we have, are the direct natural result of human nature, I would say the overall answer (given all the parameters included with the question) is a firm “no.”

I suggest that a more useful related question to ask, is whether abject poverty and class warfare are necessary components in all money-using economies. I personally would answer that question no, with an eye to the fact that many capitalism based societies have already decided to alter what is and is not a baseline element in their peoples’ lives. In the U.S., for example, we have long had plentiful public roads, public parks, and a few other things which everyone has access to without having to have any wealth. I can imagine a more modern version where that is expanded to include basic health care, basic sustenance, and basic safe living quarters, while still requiring people to earn personal wealth in order to have more.

This wouldn’t be a complete shift in financial or economic philosophy, not a shift from capitalism to socialism (as I’m sure certain people will demand that it is), just a shift in what is and is not considered to be the starting point for all capitalist competition and endeavor.

16

in what I posted above you would just have what ever passes for fearless leader say we need that and then everyone would either find or make it and make sure everyone had the the exact same amount needed …

17

Youd also have to engineer out the need for convenience and laziness …

Of course theres always " we don’t have it we cant get it so we don’t need it " option also

18

As has been pointed out above, I don’t think humans are capable of it because of our genetic make up. But I could easily imagine an intelligent alien species with maybe a hive like mentality that could operate as a cashless society.
But I would also postulate that such a society would seem dystopian to us at best.

For instance, welfare for workers unable to contribute might seem like a foreign concept to them. The most “humane” or sensible thing to them would be to euthanize those unable to contribute.

19

The mainstream description of money among most economists includes the following three features:

Store of value: money is a way of saving one’s wealth in a form that is convenient, compact, and not prone to degrade radically. You might have inflation, but a bushel of apples will lose its value even faster than your failing currency.

Unit of measure: One of the ways in which we use money is to assess the value of things. Even if no exchange is intended, we still do this. This can be quite useful and productive, as in accountants accurately measuring the health of a company via reports on the financial activity of the firm. It may also be rather disappointing, as with the assessment of human beings’ worth on the basis of their financial status.

Medium of exchange: The most obvious utility. Note however that “money” need not be “currency”, which is the representation of money as coins, bills, notes or other forms of money that have a physical existence. Actually, due to fractional reserve banking, only about 10% of money is currency.

Lemur866 brings up an interesting point about cooperation. Within the household “economy” some people may do dishes, others mow grass, or some may swap off. No explicit account may be taken to ensure that the exchange of services remains balanced. And this brings me to the central problem facing money-less economies. Trust.

Where there is complete lack of trust, no trade will exist. Where there is sufficient trust, quid pro quo arrangements can take place. Scientists have even observed this in other species. Where there is copious trust, services are rendered without any apparent record being kept of them. This has also been observed in other primates. But, this level of trust is quite high. Between mates, close friends, relatives, etc., this works quite well. But, less intimate acquaintances can easily exploit this in the manner of “the prisoners’ dilemma”.

Without this level of trust, which seems impossible to have with all fellow citizens at all times, given human nature, there must be some way to “keep track of those favors”.

I appreciate everyone’s responses. I’m not surprised, but am a bit disappointed in there being no proposed blueprint for a money-less society. I would have certainly been quite eager to examine it.

Thanks Teeming Millions! :slight_smile:

20

Not on any scale worth noting. Even in a perfect communism, there will be some need to keep score of work performed on behalf of all and allocate goods and services fairly. Only if you postulate some kind of closed system, with only perfect individuals (ones who will never lie and never take an extra cookie), can you talk about a system of humans with no economic counter.

You could do it without “money” being anything but score tokens - no banking, no interest, no loans, no investment. Just barely.