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The problem with bartering and money is someone is always going to get the short end of the stick. You explained it yourself the people protecting our country for little pay. Meanwhile a politician is making 6-7 figures sitting in a cozy safe climate controlled office rocking back and forth in his chair "working".
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Originally Posted by eddie1278
Nothing is worth exactly the same unless it's the same item in the same condition. Even if someone walks away with an item worth $5 more then what he bartered away that's what i'm talking about. My point is nothing is equally traded money wise or barter wise. Sure people may be satisfied but that doesn't mean they got something equal in return.
These notions are mistaken and short-sighted. When I entered the military my pay was $300/mo. It doesn't sound like a lot now, but all my meals were provided, plus housing and medical needs. Most of that pay was 'spending cash', except for the few things that were not issued like soap, shaving cream, etc. To put that in perspective, before I went in I was generally making less than $100/wk and all of my living expenses had to come out of that. In comparison, with the pay the Army gave me I was in high cotton...and doing something I *wanted* to do.
Your idea of "value" is wrong. It appears that you think that every thing has some concrete value assigned to it, that does not vary, this is false. 'Value' depends on the supply and demand for the 'thing' and its perceived usefulness, and/or the individual's desire to obtain the 'thing'. 'Value' is entirely subjective and dependent on the person who is assessing it.
If I have a whole bunch of some particular thing, more than I need or can use, its 'value' is not so great...to *me*. Let's say that I have 20 acres of land on which alder trees grow like weeds. I cut these alders and make walking sticks, and I have a thousand of them. I only 'need' one or two, the rest are useless to me. I can't eat them, I can't drink them, I can't wear them.
Now, let's say that *you* have some acres of land on which you grow carrots. It has been a good year and you have harvested 5,000lbs of carrots, more than you could possibly eat for several years to come. The amount you can eat has value to you, the rest do not, you don't need them and can't use them- they are worthless to you...unless you can use them to get something else that you want.
Now, you and I meet, and I discover that you would like to have a nice walking-stick. I need carrots, and you want a stick. So, we trade. I give you a stick that is worthless to me, and you give me 40lbs of carrots that are worthless to you. So, who got screwed?
The answer is- no one. I spent some time cutting and carving a walking stick. To you, that stick had more value than it did to me, and in order to obtain it you gave up 40lbs of carrots that you couldn't use and had no value. I needed carrots, and I got a year's worth for a stupid stick. You, on the other hand, got a nice stick for some stupid carrots that were just going to rot because you couldn't possibly eat that many.
We each got something that we wanted/needed, in exchange for something that we wanted/needed less and which had a lesser value to us. 'Value' is perceived according to supply and demand, and wants and needs.
Nothing is worth exactly the same unless it's the same item in the same condition. Even if someone walks away with an item worth $5 more then what he bartered away that's what i'm talking about. My point is nothing is equally traded money wise or barter wise. Sure people may be satisfied but that doesn't mean they got something equal in return.
"Value" is subjective, and not only subjective but also mometary. If I have chickens producing 100 eggs a day, an individual egg is of relatively little value to me--I'm swimming in them. However, I need to fix my chicken coop, so a bag of nails is momentarily more important to me than an egg.
In this same moment, the hardware dealer has a barrel of nails in his store--he's swimming in nails--but his wife has told him she's out of eggs. He likes eggs, and the though of starting a morning without an egg distresses him. In this moment, a few eggs are more important to him than a nail.
So how many nails do I need, how many eggs does he need, and where do the relative values intersect at this moment in each of our minds? That's what bartering is about, and that's why it's irrelevant to speak about either nails or eggs as though they had a fixed "value" to either person.
That would be a society of Star Trek replicators that apparently make anything out of nothing.
Yes, it would.
We're already at the point where food for society is provided by less than 10% of the population, instead of requiring the vast majority. Manufacturing requires fewer and fewer people. It's not at all clear what the economy of the future might look like, so maybe money won't be needed?
We're already at the point where food for society is provided by less than 10% of the population, instead of requiring the vast majority. Manufacturing requires fewer and fewer people. It's not at all clear what the economy of the future might look like, so maybe money won't be needed?
Looks more like a society where people are not needed.
I hope everyone understands that "currency" is merely a concept and that 90% of the "wealth" of the nations is in the form of 0s and 1s on banking hard drives around the world.
That is a huge change from the rest of civilized history, during which governments (kings, presidents, et al) controlled a nation's wealth through the preponderance of armed force guarding physical wealth. For the first time in history, kings do not control wealth, nor can wealth be effectively "stopped at the border."
For certain products, we already have a Star Trek economy. My sense was that in the Star Trek world, their technology had surpassed everyone's needs so it wasn't that things were free or that they had communism, it was just that the "stuff" people wanted and needed was so cheap they actually placed more value on having less stuff, causing massive deflation in most consumer goods. Salt used to be a prized commodity. It's not free today, but it's so cheap that restaurants just give it away and charge you for something else. It's so cheap that actually food with LESS salt is worth more than food with salt.
The world produces so much food with so few farmers, there's considerably more than enough to meet the caloric requirements of ~7 billion humans..... we just can't get the logistics of financing and distributing the food to everyone worked out.
I feel like in the developed countries, electronics are getting that way. I mean, I remember when buying a 20 inch TV was a BIG DEAL. I paid less, less than half actually in inflation adjusted terms, for a nice 60 inch HDTV than my parents did for a 20 inch tube that came in a wooden cabinet case back in the early 80s. At this rate, a basic 1080p 60 inch LED TV will cost a couple hundred by the 2020s. Now, getting a crystal-clear HDTV is so cheap, even for a 45-65 inch size that manufacturers are having to think up gimmicks like curved TVs, 3D, smart functions etc... to get you to buy one because the technology has progressed beyond what most people need.
Last edited by redguard57; 10-23-2015 at 12:23 PM..
I can carry money. I can't carry 2 cows over to your house to buy something.
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