This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »
Money doesn't exist, not really.
Money doesn't really exist. Money is just a claim check upon the capital resources of the real economy. It's just a virtual artifice built upon real output.
Therefore, I agree with TEDster Malcolm Gladwell in believing it is socially justified to raise the top marginal tax rate to something like 90%, so no one can make more than ~2 million per year, and also to raise the estate tax, capital gains taxes, and the effective corporate tax rate.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/festival/2010/10/video-malcolm-gladwell.html
First, because speculators, bankers, and hedge fund managers are not socially productive at all, let alone enough to justify making what they make.
Second, because every human being is entitled to food, water, clothing, and education, because there is more than enough to go around - just because you work on Wall Street doesn't mean you can squander the (finite, but growing) capital production of society on luxury goods while people starve.
"Those who create phantom wealth, and those who are the beneficiaries of mutual funds or retirement funds invested in phantom wealth, may never realize that they are giving its holder a claim on the real wealth produced by others, and that phantom-wealth dollars created out of nothing dilute the claims of everyone else to the available stock of real wealth. They may also fail to realize that Wall Street and its international counterparts have created phantom-wealth claims far in excess of the value of all the world's real wealth, creating expectations of future security and comforts that can never be fulfilled."
David Korten
Money doesn't really exist, but people do...think about it.
John Quindell
'MONEY IS NOT REALLY REAL"
http://signsonthequad.blogspot.com/2011/02/money-is-not-really-real.html
Anuj Kapoor
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Anuj Kapoor
pat gilbert 50+
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203914304576628900383779840.html
pat gilbert 50+
Regarding taxes whether they are right or wrong investment is what creates jobs, right or wrong investment capital goes where it is treated best, increasing taxes drives investment offshore. Ideological discussions are a moot point.
Bill Harrison 10+
But if there is a latent demand for widgets people can afford and a person then invests in capital to produce those widgets, then it might look like private investment creates jobs, but that job creation is really derived from the underlying demand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/opinion/its-consumer-spending-stupid.html?src=me&ref=general&gwh=FA65EB44889941F13F061CCCE6697B75
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE
Vernon Nolan
Mark Meijer 100+
Tanzi Gill
$1: For using the hammer.
$999: For knowing where and how to use it.
And this is how some people earn more than others. They may have the same knowledge but the key is the strategy in using that knowledge at the right time and right place. Such people are simply called, "Intellectual."
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence (thought and reason) and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity. That's why some people take an extra step to even patent their intellectual properties and earn great amount of money. And it justifies their earning for the mental exertion.
Bill Harrison 10+
A teacher, a man who taught other people how to use the hammer in your example, would earn less money than a person who profits from the artificial scarcity of knowledge.
http://www.ted.com/conversations/5936/are_capitalism_and_education_f.html
The marginal productivity theory of labor is also completely bunk.
Keith Whittingham 20+
I think the first step to make is to implement a 100% inheritance tax. It seems to me to be a valid argument to say that a person should earn the rewards he deserves (what the correct rewards are is a different subject) but why should his/her children enjoy those same rewards? What right does Rich Man's children have to his parents rewards when he hasn't done a thing for society? It's already too much that he enjoys a privileged childhood.
It seems a radical idea: "It's my money, I should decide who it goes to!" but it's not really. Rich Man earned his money not only by his own efforts but mostly on the back of others: Newton, Einstein, Gutenburg, the guy/girl who invented the wheel, etc. Rich Man only added a tiny bit of value on top.
The benefit. Put the money back into society - focus on education, equal opportunity and social well-being. Everybody, even Rich Man will be better off in the long run.
If you're wondering: Yes, I'm in the position that I will bequeath my inheritance to my children. I would prefer to give it to society but not unilaterally. In any case by the time we die our children (now > 80 years old) are children should have already found their place in society. I don't want my children to become spongers even if I were rich enough to support it.
Implementation: start off with an acceptable figure: say 30% this year, 31% next year, ... until we reach 100%.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
1. this money is mine, i have earned it. so i can buy a big space rocket, and spend a week on the moon.
2. this money is mine, i have earned it. so i give it to my son.
Keith Whittingham 20+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
2. what to you think the heir will do the money? won't circulate it? if if circulation is so wanted, why we allow people to buy gold? isn't it takes money out of circulation? again, i don't want quick answers, but i try to induce thinking. you don't even have to answer, it is enough for me if you don't dismiss such questions, but think about them.
Keith Whittingham 20+
What do heir's do with the money? They do circulate it a bit but not much. Take a look at countries that have an rich elite - England, America, Switzerland, ... The wealth is perpetuated for generations and the rich/poor divide does not breakdown except in extreme cases - e.g. a revolution. This is not good for society as a whole.
Sorry but in many societies people are not allowed to buy gold for good reason.
Can you let me know what the 150 year old solution is? And what problem it is solving?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
money hoarding is not at all bad. again, it is relatively easy to understand, if you bother to think about it. if you just accept catchphrases thrown at you, well, that's a different story.
heirs not circulate money? why not? why would they circulate money any less than their ancestors did? in fact, if we are talking about the typical hollywood movie kind of heirs, they circulate money at a faster pace than their father did. the wealth can exists through generations only if the heir continues to shepherd it well, invests in good businesses, does not waste it on luxury, and so on. because wealth melts in no time in the wrong hands. yet again: think before accepting catchy half truths or lies. what would you do with a million dollars? do you personally know any kind of investment form that guarantees a return?
and we digress. the original question was in fact an ethical one. if a person has the right to use his money as he pleases, why can't he just give it to someone? giving to someone is not a use?
i recommend you to read about the broken window fallacy, think about it until you are sure you have a deep understanding of it. then you might want to look up frédéric bastiat, a 19th century thinker, who made great observations on the matter. in short: consumption does not drive the economy. rather, production does. and you cannot increase production by wasting goods.
Keith Whittingham 20+
You claim to be qualified to talk about this subject and you claim that I am not worthy to comment because "I don't think before I talk/write" and haven't read some book or another. I'm sorry but that's just obnoxious. You cant even be bothered to either read my post or answer my question about the 150 year solution. So you are not worth conversing with further.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
me: "money hoarding is not at all bad."
you: "Rich families don't hoard wealth. Are you kidding me?"
how i'm supposed to answer to that? it seems that TED forum goes through some sort of distorting field before it gets to you, because later you "quote" me saying "don't think before I talk/write", while i was not saying that. then later you say i didn't answer the 150 year thing, while i did, it was the broken window fallacy, which you apparently have not followed up on.
my efforts are in vain. you cannot understand the economy reading newspaper articles. it is easy to pick a side, and echo things. but it is not enough to actually understand what's going on. you need to study the basics, division of labor, capital, prices, supply and demand, profit and loss, the role of the entrepreneur, theory of money. this is not hard, but not trivial either. there is a lot to learn here. i did study these things, i spent 10 months on that. and i recommend you to do the same.
ps: i pretend not to notice the "you are not worth" part. i consider it a massive series of typos.
Fred Lanisake
So I don't discredit what you say- it is happening. But even if it catches on, it stands in the way of our entire economic infrastructure. Power across the world is delegated economically, often with loans. As long as you have banks, you have economic authorities, whether or not we choose to call them governments or corporations. Even if we scrap the whole system and start from scratch (which would realistically only happen in the event of a complete economic collapse) this would only pave the way for a one-world central bank, granting loans in a one-world currency, similar to what the EU has today with the ECB. Plainly put, we could implement a better system, but the powerful just aren't going to allow it.
So about raising awareness... we might as well go pitch a tent on Wall Street. I give it a month before we freeze to death.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
banks are not a problem as long as they compete. the problems of today's money systems are their imposed, monopolistic nature. we don't necessarily need fundamentally better money. we just need free competition. in competitive environment, people can simply abandon the money that is tampered with or badly managed.
Fred Lanisake
Krisztián Pintér 200+
the term "money" is indeed ambiguous, in large part because there are crazy laws around it. should money be free of government influence, it would be much simpler and less confuse. just as it was before.
Fred Lanisake
If privatized central banks is what you want, we almost have that today here in the US. The FOMC is a largely private board and even with some publicly (presidentially) appointed members it remains largely free of any government ratifications. If decentralized, unregulated banks is what you want, the US tried that also in the 1800's and I don't think any one bank lived longer than five years. As long as you have banks, especially as long as you have a fractional reserve banking system, you're going to have corruption. That is, as long as you have money being loaned that *technically* doesn't exist until you loan it, you're going to be delegating unnatural, incredible power to a small handful of people.
Nation states hardly interest us anymore. We're into economic empires. How exactly are we supposed to introduce any significant change to our banking infrastructure?
Krisztián Pintér 200+
privatized central bank is an oxymoron in itself. the free market never established such an institution, and never will. you need the coercive power of the state for that. we don't need that institution.
how to change? i see no other way than raising awareness. learning and teaching.
Albert Hong
1. many government programs and the way government allocates revenue is extremely wasteful.
2. the programs that government chooses to spend our taxes may not coincide with what we consider important.
3. Government must account for the loss in investment. Many scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs rely upon individual funding.
4. Re-examine the incentive structure. Would this decrease the motivation to earn money?
Indeed Malcom does outline various valid arguments. However, I think that if government expands, it also must be more accountable, democratic, transparent, and efficient.
I think this topic is very closely related:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/6241/tax_system_that_allows_people.html
Bill Harrison 10+
I believe in infrastructure, public goods, and straight up wealth re-distribution, which runs around Hayek's problem of central planning:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/katine-chronicles-blog/2010/jun/29/just-give-money-cash-transfers
2. I hate paying taxes for wars I disagree with, but one of the points of government is to correct for externalities in people's actions. It doesn't matter if you agree with infrastructure spending, the fact is that you benefit from the road when it is built, so you should help pay for it. I like the idea of taking a small percentage of that allocation and making it discretionary, though.
3. The Internet was invented by DARPA, AKA the government. The idea that taxing the private sector creates deadweight loss is hogwash propagated by idiot conservative economists, who should all be fired and/or shot.
4. The goal is not to earn money - money is a collective fiction. The goal is not profit - profit can be made through artificial scarcity, monopoly, etc. The goal is social productivity.
People will still work and be socially productive, even if they are not paid exorbitant sums. Partly because social status gets you laid, and partly because beyond a certain point, money is virtually irrelevant to your wellbeing, yet for those people still work and are socially productive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/business/darwin-the-market-whiz.html?pagewanted=all
Albert Hong
' social status gets you laid' - haha nice!
There may be truth to what you say. Obviously you don't agree with conservatism (as do i for the most part), but if you expect to impact change, you have to acknowledge that both sides have valid points. Instead of shooting down your idea, I was trying to build upon it. Sorry if you thought otherwise.
However, my point is we don't know exactly how people act/react.
1. You are right about media often obscuring the truth. However, I don't think we can distinctly say which way the truth is obscured. I think that the best way is transparency- to have unbiased media. Although 'we are the government' how are we to elect the right people if we don't have deep insight into what they are truly doing?
2. Granted many inventions can be attributed to government help. However, you must acknowledge that most research is privately funded. For this plan to take effect, government would need to compensate for this if the system is implemented.
3. I know a number of people who think otherwise .Ultimately incentive structure is about the psychology of the individual. The truth is that our very culture is embedded with the mentality of money money money (just listen to what many popular songs, tv shows, and movies are all about).
paula moffatt
PLEASE BE CAREFUL WITH THESE KINDS OF COMMENTS!! Even if you are joking.
Humanity has too much bloody ideological history to joke about this kind of stuff.
Bill Harrison 10+
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?gwh=2EE661AEF769A07DA605793F10CEC0A5
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/14/understanding-occupy-wall-street/?intcmp=trending
Fred Lanisake
To bring us round circle, your point was exactly my point when I first posted that a moneyless world is theoretically possible. Most of our points in this debate are things we both agree on, you're just accusing me of making it too complicated and I quite honestly think you're making it too simple. Now I'm not quite sure where this is going- you asked me to explain how a moneyless world is possible and I did: by switching gears from competition to collaboration. Whether or not this will ever happen is another debate... and I don't think I can make a case for it.
The one thing we've really disagreed on is money being a simple commodity. I think it's a whole different animal. Money is how we value things. Maybe central bank loan slips are a commodity, because that's kind of what's become of currency these days. But I've made my case and I don't really see it going anywhere.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
how poor is the person who has no money, but has whatever he wants, whenever he wants?
it does not take a university degree to see through money, and see that neither money itself, nor the lack of it is the source of these problems. if you lack money, you actually lack food, clothing, shelter, heating, medicine, tools, books and so on. and you don't have these because you can't provide enough value, for any reason. thus money is nothing else but a commodity that is used to facilitate exchange. i'm positively getting bored, so that was the last time i say that.
Fred Lanisake
I've come across an interesting article on commodity money and how it differs from representative money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money Like I've been saying, money today has no naturally inherent value. It's instead the way we value things. A person who has anything he wants, but no representative funny-money is still wealthy, even if he doesn't liquidate his assets.
So relating this back to the main discussion, eradicating money from the world would entail eradicating a standardized value system, otherwise wealth and poverty will still exist, which is what I think you've been trying to say. We'd have to rewire the way we think about trade and competition.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
commodity money is a term used to denote stuff that is also used for something else than facilitator of exchange.
when i say money is just another commodity, i mean that non-commodity moneys are also function as commodities. in the sense that they are things that can be bought and sold on the market, and has some use for people. that use is buying stuff.
in detail, this means that money behaves almost like everything else on the market. it has a demand, it has a supply, and the "price of money", that is, the amount of stuff money can buy is determined by the usual supply-demand curves. the only difference between money and flour is that you can't bake bread out of money.
attributing any more importance to money is just false. it is a mystification.
there are two major differences between money and flour. one is that the amount of money does not matter, while the amount of flour does. it is irrelevant whether we have 1 trillion or 100 trillion units of money in an economy. note that the rate of change does matter though. i'm talking about stable amount. and the second is it is possible today to create new money with virtually no cost. that is not the case with any real commodities.
but apart of these specialities, money is just another stuff on the market that can be bought and sold.
Bill Harrison 10+
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/12/1025555/-Open-Letter-to-that-53-Guy
Bill Harrison 10+
I don't consider people who are paid a fair wage to be "wage slaves," but many people who work jobs for minimum wage, whose brains are malnourished, who cannot afford healthcare they need, and whose labor other people live lavishly upon, I consider them wage slaves.
If you have worked for your money and you have been socially productive and you have deferred consumption, more power to you. But there is a highly imperfect correlation between how much money you have, how socially productive you are, and how much consumption you are "entitled to." Some people can admit that, others can't.
I don't know what that means practically to not trust politicians with tasks like distributing money. What about public goods, like roads and other infrastructure?
What you seem to be suggesting, either a smaller, less powerful government or getting rid of government altogether, is essentially the policy that the US has been trying for the past 10 years - "trickle down" economics, giving more money to the wealthy while depleting the coffers.
Like Hayek, I am usually opposed to "central planning," because I don't think politicians are smart enough to directly manage the economy. However, I also recognize that "the free market" can and does fail massively, and when it does, the government can and should correct those failures, like it did during the Depression. The government has a place in correcting market failures - when it comes to monopolies, when it comes to public goods like infrastructure, and when it comes to the rising inequality over the past decade.
I'm still not entirely sure what you're advocating, other than that "government is bad."
Krisztián Pintér 200+
the second problem is that you ask, with a straight face, questions that are asked and answered. there is zero need to debate questions that are already debated, using the same arguments over and over again. it might please the many who do not want to hear anything new. but it should only upset those who like to ask questions. for one, the "who will build roads" and the very term "public good" is nothing else than boring. simply put, there is no such thing as public good. it is a century old fallacy that is not supported by anything but claiming it "obvious". it is also obvious that the earth stands still, and the sun goes around it. obvious, yet false. being obvious is not good enough.
actually "government is bad" is not the core of what i advocate. the core is "coercion is bad". and government is a way the majority coerces its world views and beliefs on the entire society. alas, often these beliefs are misconceptions.
Fred Lanisake
"government is a way the majority coerces its world views and beliefs on the entire society."
I don't think this have ever been the case. Even Athens, which sported a direct democracy (the people themselves took turns in parliament), only granted this privilege to a very small percentage of the population. Women weren't allowed to participate, nor were slaves (1 person in every 3 was a slave). Of the men, not only was it required they'd been born in Athens, but both of their parents must have been too.
So maybe you meant "democracy" and not government, but I don't think we've had a direct democracy since Athens.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
i make assumptions? you talk about "wage slavery" which is an oxymoron in itself, since slaves don't receive wages. plus nobody is forced to work for a wage, but most people actually love to do so, as it is low risk. so i'm kinda happy to be a wage slave, and i'm not alone with it. where your empathy went? you can't empathize the millions who happily work for a fixed monthly salary, and are happy with that? those, who prefer safety and stability over risk, stress, fierce competition? you live in an imaginary world.
my money is a "claim check" over stuff i already worked for. i could have got those things for long, but i deferred my consumption. money just indicates the amount i'm entitled for. my earlier work grants me those things, nothing else.
how do i get rid of politicians? what the heck i'm talking about for months?? simply by not trusting politicians with tasks like distributing money, regulating the economy, and things like that. if they don't get this power, they can't use it wrong.
your analysis of my analysis is rather poor. honest politicians can be bought by money? it seems that our concept of honest differ greatly.
Walker Sharpe
Essentially, money is a tool. It's an incredibly powerful and socially reinforced tool that we have all been conditioned to accept. In this sense, money is almost the IDEAL tool. How else could people be organized, resources allocated, and timelines coordinated in order to build or construct anything of value? A 10,000,000 dollar office building is essentially worth that much because the complexity of it's design. Complex designs generally tend to cost more, and this makes sense as they are harder to create. Money in this sense in an excellent tool in creating complex designs.
The issue you are truly addressing here is that some humans take this immensely powerful tool and use it for selfish ends.
Here I raise the question:
Is the problem with the tool, or with the conscious body whom is using that tool to createl?
Essentially, the issue lays in the fact that this tool is being used to create things that are subservient only to a single individual at the great expense of others. This is a twisted perception of the Godmind in all men and women, and a misuse of the limitless potential that lays within us all. The only corrective measure lays in addressed how humanity uses it's internal creative power.
For essentially, there is a tool even greater than Money, and this is the Human Mind. In the wealth of thought and creativity we are all infinitely rich. The problem lies in people's belief in this reality. Money is simply being used as a tool for some Egos within our world to convince us that they are more deserving, more elite, more valuable or more enlightened in ideas. This is the blatant lie! We are all Living Expressions of Divine and infinite potential, the truth of the matter being that we all have the power to change reality.
Bill Harrison 10+
These people, who live off of capital gains, understand the inequity/inefficiency/injustice in the system:
http://westandwiththe99percent.tumblr.com/page/4
Second, I agree that money is an intermediary of exchange, but that it is also a claim check upon consumer goods doesn't disconfirm that money is a claim check upon capital and/or capital output. The distinction between the two is often just conceptual. If you refuse to see because you don't want to see, that money can be multiple things, including a claim check upon capital and/or capital output, then I guess I can't help you.
"money can not be used to purchase political power, unless we have corrupt politicians. hence my proposal: get rid of corrupt politicians. logic!"
This seems extremely naive, while trivializing the problem. How do you propose to get rid of corrupt politicians, when the politicians who receive the most money have the most to spend on their campaigns? Are you opposed to the idea of publicly financed elections? Are you opposed to higher capital gains taxes and/or higher top marginal tax rates?
Your analysis seems to end at, "if the people are too stupid to elect honest politicians, then it is their own fault that they are poor."
But the system is heavily stacked toward those who pander to the wealthy, who own the broadcast spectrum and the media, etc. The OWS movements are trying to correct that problem, with publicly financed elections, higher capital gains taxes, and so forth. When the banks can write rules allowing themselves to make a killing while crashing the financial system, that becomes my problem.
Bill Harrison 10+
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-streets-political-disobedience/?ref=opinion&gwh=DDC220E0E2DB0DFF510611C2C9CBDA77
'"By reinvigorating the myth of free markets, the financial and political architects of our economy over the past three plus decades — both Republicans and Democrats — were able to disguise massive redistribution toward the richest by claiming they were simply “deregulating” when all along they were actually reregulating to the benefit of their largest campaign donors.
This ideological fog blinded the American people to the pervasive regulatory mechanisms that are necessary to organize a colossal late-modern economy and that necessarily distribute wealth throughout society — and in this country, that quietly redistributed massive amounts of wealth to the richest 1 percent. Many of the voices at Occupy Wall Street accuse political ideology on both sides, on the side of free markets but also on the side of big government, for serving the few at the expense of the other 99 percent — for paving the way to an entrenched permissive regulatory system that “privatizes gains and socializes losses.”'
Krisztián Pintér 200+
my second question is this. so the author realizes the difference between deregulation and "deregulation". but then he uses arguments against "deregulation" to condemn deregulation. nobody sees that it is not right that way? you can not use the failure (actually, success) of "deregulation" as an argument against the free market.
third question. since today the mainstream view is that big business controls the world, and not the elected leaders, exactly what is that fog you are talking about? exactly how can you call the large scale looting quiet if it is so heavily discussed all over the world?
Bill Harrison 10+
Private property, the rule of law, and money are all collective fictions officially enforced by "the government," but mostly by the fact that people have been so immersed in a particular social reality that they are habituated to seeing the world so as to take those things for granted.
By calling money what it actually functions as, a claim check upon the capital production of society, I'm trying to wake people up to actually see what happens instead of what conservative economists tell us must happen according to the free market. This makes certain inefficiencies/injustices/inequalities like hunger in the face of plenty more apparent.
2. In a picture, here is the failure of "deregulation" -
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/bank-merger-history
With their increasing size, the banks can purchase political power to write the rules even more heavily in their favor.
3. Money can be used to purchase influence with elected leaders, who depend upon campaign contributions in order to be elected. This is why one of the main demands of the growing protests is publicly financed elections, so that serving the interests of the wealthy is no longer a necessary condition for being elected.
You are looking at the immediate picture, but over the past several decades, the media has not been covering the fact that "de-regulation" really means "regulations that favor the wealthy over the poor."
Business and politics are both part of the same system, which is why there needs to be a pragmatic check on economic power, just as we place checks upon formal political power.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
whose contribution to the enterprise is their ownership of capital? no, not at all. their contribution is decision making. owners decide *which* enterprises receive capital, and which are not. capital does not automatically produce more capital. it can produce less. it is a job someone needs to do.
money is not "claim check upon capital production". for one, i can buy consumer goods with money, not only capital. money is an intermediate of exchange. i give something, i receive something. it is easy.
banks write rules? their rules are of no concern to me, i will not follow them. wait, there is the state to enforce those rules. bad luck. i have no problem with regulations. i have problem with the state that enforces them with police and courts. banks can't regulate anything on their own.
money can not be used to purchase political power, unless we have corrupt politicians. hence my proposal: get rid of corrupt politicians. logic!
media not been covering. in the era of the internet. i couldn't care less. if you watch fox news, you are to blame, not the wall street.
no, business and politics are not the same system. as they say, if you get a mail from walmart, you will open it with curiosity. if you get a mail from the state, you will open it in fear. that pretty much sums up the difference. because economic power never extends over a person's own property. state power by its nature does.
Bill Harrison 10+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Fred Lanisake
Some people kill for money. Many people do if you take into consideration armies. How much did Gaddafi spend on mercenaries this year? Money is hardly a commodity to be passed around like table salt.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
but lobby politicians ... that is a good one. and that is a one i try to explain for a long time on these forums, to no success so far. it is not money that grants you special rights. it is corrupt politicians who grant you those. to me, this distinction seems to be so simple and clear, yet, i'm unable to communicate this. why is that?
yes, money is a simple commodity. it can buy you chocolate, and it can buy you guns. and then you can use the guns to shoot people. money is no more responsible than the gun, the bullet or the car the shooter drives. the shooter is responsible.
Fred Lanisake
I think you misunderstood me earlier when I asked "Have you ever tried to buy anything with no money?" Lack of money often translates not only into lack of power but lack of security. We don't seek money simply to seek power, but because we need it to survive. Money holds it's sway over us because it easily facilitates trade of literally anything that can be traded- it allows us to acquire not only the things we desire, but the things we need.
"Making money" is often referred to "making a living". So while you can define it as a "simple commodity" without qualitative difference, it's really the blood of our infrastructure. We sell our bodies on the street, in the workplace and in congress in exchange for power and security.
Most commodities have real, inherent applications that make them valuable. Flour can be used for baking. Silicon can be used to make microchips. Oil can be used as fuel. Money on the other hand is simply just value.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
money is just an intermediate here. actually stuff make you safe, make you comfortable and healthy. you work to create stuff. we don't work for ourselves anymore. we live in a complex economy, in which we divide labor. you get money for your work, you get stuff for your money. this is ALL. there is no other aspect to it. money does not do anything more than that.
when someone kills for money, he kills for stuff. when someone wants money, he wants stuff. when someone is working for money, he works for stuff.
it has NOTHING to do with inequality, corruption, poverty, pollution, etc. all of these things can and would exist in a money-less world too.
Fred Lanisake
Fred Lanisake
In the past competition has always driven progress. But in the recent decades we've seen the emergence of progress driven by collaboration - the open source movement. In fact a good handful of the software many of us use took off when the company abandoned the project and released the source code (if you're using firefox, you're kind of using the deceased and revived netscape navigator). Chances are most of the websites you visit are hosted on linux servers. The concept of open source has been waging a somewhat ideological warfare against companies like Microsoft, which has been known to invest in foreign governments utilizing open source and switch them over to proprietary solutions.
So while this is a far cry from a free world, it shows the power of collaboration. An emerging trend is to spread open source to other industires and applications - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/cameron_sinclair_on_open_source_architecture.html . Money itself has even gone open source - http://bitcoin.org/
Free infrastructures for energy and communication are possible... Nikola Tesla, the main man behind alternating current and wireless energy transfer designed a tesla coil system to circulate and tap into energy in the ionosphere. He even got JP Morgan to commission the project for a little while after the abandonment of the Wycliff tower. Needless to say he pulled the plug.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Fred Lanisake
Have you ever had no money? Ever wake up on a sidewalk hungry?
Sorry to use big words like "represent". Money is power. Money is security.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
but i'd like to call your attention to my actual description of money, which is carefully hidden in my comment. since it is hard to find, i repeat it:
"money is just another commodity that has the purpose of facilitating exchange"
Vernon Nolan
I wish I could live another 50 years to see how things pan out. I envy those who will witness the dramatic years ahead.
Vernon Nolan
Suppose we simply boycott money. Don't accept it or use It. Everyone does whatever they do now, except without money. There is much more to be said but writing is difficult for me. How about some of you picking it up?
What counts is what people DO!! Not what they HAVE!
V.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Vernon Nolan
The point is in order for things to wor5k in the future we have learn to co-operate and trust each other. Money generates mistrust and suspicion. Unless we can change that the future is dead.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Bill Harrison 10+
However, there are huge inefficiencies with unchecked capitalism. People can use money to buy political power, with which they acquire more money, without being socially productive at all, for example. People can pass on political/financial power from one generation to the next with no guarantee that the next generation is not idiotic/psychopathic (George W. Bush, Rupert Murdoch). And people mistake money for virtue...but just because you're rich doesn't mean you're smart, awesome, or socially productive, and just because you're poor doesn't mean you're not.
All of which is why, in the 1950's, we had a top marginal tax rate of 90%, so there was an upper limit on what people can do with the society's capital...you can only have so many "claim checks" per year, because beyond that, the diminishing returns to wellbeing dictate that it is not worth spending society's capital on your consumption, when other people's lives' and brains' could put it to better use. It is a mixture of the efficient components of both capitalism and socialism.
What rich people seem not to understand is that the rule of law, property rights, and money are all collective fictions. We've been living in this socially constructed reality for so long, that most people can't even see the real suffering caused as a result of it. Put differently, our present socially constructed systems lead people to forget how interdependent we all are, and that is a big problem.
Vernon Nolan
No,no barter, no exchange, everyone gets what they need, and everyone gives what they are comfortable with. Sure this is ideal but what is the point of designing anything less?
Rich people are not that different. All are limited by the thinking patterns that have been infused into them. There are different laws for the rich, but they do not tell us that.
paula moffatt
Bill Harrison 10+
Replace the word "money" with the word "water" or "food," and this should be self-evident. But then again, this is the age of the corporate propaganda machine, so the ability to see what is self-evident is much rarer than it ought to be.
Bill Harrison 10+
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html?src=me&ref=general
Fred Lanisake
There's a tremendous amount of animosity towards the rich. I understand, I'm dirt fucking poor. But my beef isn't with the people winning the game. My beef isn't even with the cheaters...
My beef is with the game.
There's a small handful of people laughing evilly somewhere in the world right now. It isn't the illuminati. It isn't any government. It isn't Wall Street. Where does money come from? That's the question to ask.
Aey Times
A member on our site has written more about this problem here:
Revamping Wealth Distribution in Society
http://aeytimes.com/ideas/783/Revamping_Wealth_Distribution_in_Society/
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Aey Times
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Aey Times
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Aey Times
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Aey Times
Krisztián Pintér 200+