Money...what is it good for?

[OZZYGT]

I hope not many people catalog this thread as a dumb one, I just want to see what are other people's thoughts on something that's been bothering me for like a year or 2.

Why does money exists?

I'm not a great economist and I understand little about capitalism. Anyway, imagine the world without the use of money; people getting "richer" by just earning rights to own a particular property.
Here's my thought.
For instance, when we pay for food at a store....that money is divided in many parts; one to the store itself, another one to the brand company, then part of that money, the company distributes it to the manufacturer and finally it reaches the farms were all the goods are cultivated. The owner of the farm is going to pay his employees for their work on his farm.
But what if, these farmers get everything they need for free? like food, light, gas, place to live, tractors, chemicals for plague control, animal care supplies etc....all in exchange for their work.
Same thing with us...let's say I step into a Toyota dealership to buy a new Rav4. When it's time to pay, or at least put my downpayment, I give them a photo ID with a personal barcode where they can ckeck how my working status is. If they see that I work as an Architect for a big company, and I've been working for them for like 3-5 years, then of course they'd give me the car. But what if I worked at a taco bell as a meat chopper, and I only work 35 hours a week? then they would give me the car with certain conditions.

Another example but from another perspective. What If you own a house, and then you would like to "sell it". So then someone comes, gets it for free (because he is allowed), and then you are left off with nothing? It can't happen because that money that you could've got for the house, is now on your record and whenever you want to buy something expensive like another porion of land, you can be allowed to get it since it's in your record that you have sold a house.

This theory can be applied to any situation that I can think off. This would eliminate problems monetary units from different countries.

I might be losing a big point here of why money is needed. That's why I need you guys to help me out on this one.

You can fire the hole now!



Ciao!

 

[Kylehnat]

I think money gives us an objective measurement of our ability to acquire the things you mentioned. For instance, that Rav 4. Maybe the meat chopper at Taco Bell has some money saved from inheritance, trust fund, or whatever... Judging him by the job he has is foolish. Money takes away this subjectivity. This number says that you can either afford the car, or you can't. There's no guesswork.

This theory can be applied to any situation that I can think off. This would eliminate problems monetary units from different countries.

I would argue the exact opposite. Money eliminates most problems attributed with evaluating one's net worth. Money is a natural progression of how trade worked in the distant past. Then, people would exchange beaver pelts (or something of that nature) for goods and services. But what happened when someone brought in an extremely large beaver pelt? Clearly it is worth more than a small pelt. But how much? Someone had to make a subjective decision. Money, and the standard on which it is based allows no room for interpretation. One dollar bill is worth the same as three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel, even though the coins weigh more, last longer, are shiny....

 

[OZZYGT]

For instance, that Rav 4. Maybe the meat chopper at Taco Bell has some money saved from inheritance, trust fund, or whatever... Judging him by the job he has is foolish. Money takes away this subjectivity. This number says that you can either afford the car, or you can't. There's no guesswork.

Right. But remember that money doesn't exist in this scenario, therefore there cannot be any savings accounts; If you always dreamed to have somehting like a car...then working and working would actually compensate your dream, AND everything that you've gotten (for free) before getting the car, would take in account, that's why I said, to a degree. As far as property inherited goes, whoever gives you anything like your parents or grandparents, would go directly into your status.

I would argue the exact opposite. Money eliminates most problems attributed with evaluating one's net worth. Money is a natural progression of how trade worked in the distant past. Then, people would exchange beaver pelts (or something of that nature) for goods and services. But what happened when someone brought in an extremely large beaver pelt? Clearly it is worth more than a small pelt. But how much? Someone had to make a subjective decision. Money, and the standard on which it is based allows no room for interpretation. One dollar bill is worth the same as three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel, even though the coins weigh more, last longer, are shiny....

You have a very good point, but your example resembles what happened in the past. Money is worthless to us if we don't spend it, and that's my point. We have now a technology that can alllow us terminate trade methods and start compensating people for their amount of working-time.



Ciao!

 

[Omnis]

Money is just a convenient trade tool. Instead of hauling around a million chickens, I could just pay someone with money, obviously. That, and because cash has no real value, we can account for money virtually, obviously.

 

[Sage]

Ozzy – Don’t you think your system would get complicated rather quickly? When I go to the grocery store and buy stuff, I would be in “negative” debt, and the store would be in “positive” debt, if I’m following you correctly. Okay, then, how much negative debt do I have? Do I have to write down all of my groceries? And the store – what do they do with their positive debt? How do they pay their employees? Not every employee is going to want the same thing – do employees have to itemize a “want” list?

Money is much simpler to deal with. With your system, everything would have to be itemized, and everything would involve bargaining.

And just try playing the stock market without money.

 

[wfooshee]

You say you should be able to go to the Toyota dealership and prove work status equal to earning the right to drive a RAV4. What measures that work status? How is your Taco Bell meat chopper going to have his "certain conditions" defined? Does his work status qualify him for a used Fiat no questions, like the architect who gets the RAV4? And what's to keep him from taking that ID card to 6 dealerships?

His worth has to be measured, and compared to the benefit of the product he wishes to procure. That measurement is money.

It may seem that the measurement of money itself is rather arbritrary and theoretical, as in how exchange rates between currencies move up and down. Cash was developed as an alternative to a barter system. ("I'll give you 2 live sheep for a side of salt pork.") Cash was once valued against a known something. I'm not old enough to remember when a British Pound was literally a pound of silver, but I AM old enough to remember a gold standard of $35 an ounce. As nations did more and more business with each other, their currency values floated against each other, as did the metals or jewelry they were defined against, so locking a monetary unit to a quantity of valuable property became less meaningful, and currencies are pretty much valued against each other. Anyway, cash gives a standard measurement of the value of something. Sell your 2 sheep for $5 apiece, and buy the pork for $10. Now the guy who sold you the pork doesn't have to find somebody else who wants two sheep in exchange for something he needs, like feed for his hogs.

Cash today is symbolic, and that's where you have a problem with it. There was once a time when the coin was supposed to be literally its value of the metal used. That's why silver is no longer used for dimes and quarters, because 10 cents worth of silver would be a bit of dust. It's also why we periodically hear about pennies not being made any more. It's getting hard to produce a penny for less than a penny. Paper money was supposed to be a certificate of worth issued by a goverment. "We do hereby certify that the value of this note is covered by gobs of gold and silver we keep in a vault." No longer. The value of paper money is what people believe it is worth. "We certify that we, your government, will provide value to this note somehow." Still, that value, however arbirtary it has become, is the measure of your ability to participate in any transaction or trade.

At the very basic level, everybody gets paid for providing something other people need, or for helping someone do the providing. What a person gets paid allows them to buy the things they need to survive, and if they have more worth than that, then they can buy toys, or invest, or simply hoard it in a mattress.

Back to your card, showing your worth as a worker. You go to the grocery store. You go to the clothier's. You go to the theater. You go to a sporting event. You travel. All of these providers are just supposed to accept your card as proof of your worth to the transaction? What's to keep you from going to this store for a suit, this store for a few shirts, this store for some shoes, this store for music, this store for a music player, this store for a PS2, just flashing the card all the way along. Some measurement of the use of that "worth" has to be implemented. We call it money. The card we call VISA. It's worth is tracked very carefully by people who know how to find you, and for their trouble, they take a little more of your worth than you actually used on the card, calling it "interest."

Your last example was a house transaction. I sell my house to a guy who's entitled to it, and now I'm entitled to another one. It's on my record. What record? Kept by whom? The government? The Special Worth and Property commitee? "Yes, may I see your SWAP card, please?"

You say you don't understand the use of money, yet in every one of your examples, you point out the need to measure the value of a transaction. "I work this long at this place, that's worth a car for 5 years. I left this house, I should be able to get that one now." My inheritance goes into my status.

Money provides that measurement.

 

[FoolKiller]

Mr.OzzyGT, you have just described a credit/debit card.

I work and my paycheck is deposited in my bank account. When I buy stuff I use my debit card more than anything. My debit card tells the person I am buying stuff from that I am worth the value of the item I am purchasing or more, because I worked enough to earn that value.

Now a credit card is similar but instead it says that I have shown that I am good for the value, even if I work it off in the future, I have shown myself to be worthy of that value.

The only difference between this and what you describe is that the current system with cards uses a monetary value to describe the worth of my work, while your system has no numerical value. Our current system works just fine by giving a more easily understood, yet arbitrary, numerical system

Even cash says to a retailer that I have worked in some way to be at least of this much value. It is a tender note that represents a value, not teh actual fruit of my labor. All money does is give an easily understood numerical value to the system you are trying to describe. All you did was remove the numbers from capitalism, which quite frankly can get confusing.

You were saying things were free, such as the Rav4, but if you had not done the work to deserve a Rav4 you wouldn't get it without stipulations (debt/interest). It was not free because you had to put forth the work to deserve it. It cost you your work effort. In today's society we measure your work effort with money so that they can say a Rav4 is worth X dollars and you earned 2X dollars in a year so you can purchase that Rav4 and your money or bank account shows that you have that work value. You can then buy groceries for .1X dollars and still have .9X dollars left for the rest of the year to spend on more groceries or a smaller car or a gift for a significant other.


See, it is all the same, you just left out the word money.

 

[Danoff]

Ozzy the fundamental thing that you've overlooked is the outflow of each person's budget. You've tried to figure out a way around exchanging money by checking the inflow, but the outflow is just as critical.

Take my parents for example. They make a lot of money, but they spend it even faster than they make it. They cannot afford the Rav4, even though their jobs indicate that they should be able to. That's because they already used up their cash on a bazillion other things.

Money is a symbol of productivity. One dollar is worth a certain quantity of productivity. When you work, you convert your work into dollars. When you buy goods, you allow someone else to convert work into dollars and so-on. The perfect system is the one that allows for a perfect exchange of productivity. Money makes that possible.

On a side note, this is one of the ways in which public schools are failing us. Economics is something very few people understand and it's a huge problem with the world right now. When politicians talk about universal health care, people are actually uneducated enough to think it's free. Money, and the fundamentals of supply and demand in a market are critical to interaction in society. Without that basic education, the world doesn't make much sense.

 

[Poverty]

money and religion is the basis of all evil.

 

[Danoff]

money... is the basis of all evil.

Money is not the basis of all evil. Evil predates money. Money is the basis of most good.

 

[DuckRacer]

money and religion is the basis of all evil.

No, the love of money is the root of all evil.

 

[Danoff]

No, the love of money is the root of all evil.

Still not right.The love of money is the basis of much good. Many improvements in quality of life and standard of living are directly attributable to a love of money.

 

[FoolKiller]

All evil involving money comes from the humans who have it or desire it.

Humans are the root of all evil (taken from a purely non-religious point of view).

If I throw a brick through a window is the brick at fault or am I? What a human does with money is purely the fault of the human.

 

[Poverty]

money = greed
money funds religious wars, or any war for that matter, and whats the war about? Usually money, to improve the lifestyle, and get creature comforts with that money such as cars.

Hence

money = basis of all evil.

 

[Swift]

money = basis of all evil.

And Poverty gets one right! Call the press!

 

[FoolKiller]

money = greed
money funds religious wars, or any war for that matter, and whats the war about? Usually money, to improve the lifestyle, and get creature comforts with that money such as cars.

Hence

money = basis of all evil.

Who is greedy? Humans
Who uses money to fund war? Humans
Who decides to go to war? Humans
Who is in war for money? Humans
Who wants everything money can get them? Humans

Hence

Humans = basis of all evil.

If we used a bartering system and people were killed for posessions would objects be the root of all evil?

Money does not lead to murder for revenge or in the eat of passion.
Money will not make me hate someone because they wronged me personally.

If money did not exist we would still have all these evil things you can think to attribute towards money. Why? Because humans will still do them.

 

[Poverty]

Humans = basis of all evil.

If we used a bartering system and people were killed for posessions would objects be the root of all evil?

Yes humans are the basis of all evil, and money brings that quality out of humans because, with money you buy things you want, or services.

So in a bartering system the money is an object or service, with each item having a different value, and the more objects of desire you have the more power you have, just like with money.

Money and luxury items are the same thing, they form the basis of all evil, as technically we are murdering people to get the objects and things we want.

Money will not make me hate someone because they wronged me personally

Money will sure make humans forgive someone, which we have seen all throughout history, so I suppose it could work both ways.

 

[Danoff]

Yes humans are the basis of all evil, and money brings that quality out of humans because, with money you buy things you want, or services.

So in a bartering system the money is an object or service, with each item having a different value, and the more objects of desire you have the more power you have, just like with money.

Money and luxury items are the same thing, they form the basis of all evil, as technically we are murdering people to get the objects and things we want.

Ok so now money isn't the basis of all evil, possessions are. Do you see what follows from that? That the most pure good person is the one with the fewest possessions, and the most evil person is the one with the most?

It's nonsense. The desire for possessions is a source of both good and evil . Besides which, FK is right when he says that blame cannot be placed on an object, only one a person with free will. The only place to put the blame is on people themselves.

Human beings are the source of all evil, and good.

 

[wfooshee]

Money is not the source of this evil. Greed is the source of the problems you describe. Money is irrelevant in that discussion.

Humans who want something someone else has but cannot obtain it legitimately will resort to other means. It might be a mugger in an alley, it might be a nation invading another. Money itself is not the issue. The issue is "We want what you have."

On the other hand, human conflict is not always based on that. Sometimes it's just "You are not us, so you must be destroyed." Witness the recent genocidal conflicts in Africa and eastern Europe, not to mention the fundamentalist muslims and their terrorist jihad.

The evil was not caused by the money, the evil was in the person already, by training, by desire, by chemical imbalance, whatever. Money is just a measurement of the value of trade.

 

[Danoff]

Money is not the source of this evil. Greed is the source of the problems you describe. Money is irrelevant in that discussion.

Humans who want something someone else has but cannot obtain it legitimately will resort to other means. It might be a mugger in an alley, it might be a nation invading another. Money itself is not the issue. The issue is "We want what you have."

You're mixing issues. Greed is not inherently bad. Greed can lead to many good things. Only if you allow greed to convince you to perform immoral acts - such as theft - have you crossed the line. And that isn't caused by greed, but by a lack of morality.

Greed is good, provided the greedy person is moral. Immoral people, greedy or not, are a problem.

 

[Swift]

I'm sorry I was mistaken earlier. The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself.

 

[Danoff]

I'm sorry I was mistaken earlier. The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself.

Ok Swift,

That's just wrong. What about September 11th? Evil? Yes. From the love of money? No. What about the C6 Z06 vette from GM? Evil? No. From the love of money? Most certainly.

(Replace the Vette with "Washing Machine" or "Dishwasher" or "Refrigerator" or "Air conditioner" or "Television" and you'll see my point)

 

[Swift]

Ok Swift,

That's just wrong. What about September 11th? Evil? Yes. From the love of money? No. What about the C6 Z06 vette from GM? Evil? No. From the love of money? Most certainly.

(Replace the Vette with "Washing Machine" or "Dishwasher" or "Refrigerator" or "Air conditioner" or "Television" and you'll see my point)

You're missing it. I'm not talking about all good and all evil. I'm saying evil stems from the love of money and the things money can do. Look at 9/11. Why do the muslim extremists hate us? Many reasons but the two biggest are our lifestyle and we side with Israel. Bin Laden even said it himself that he hates the lifestyle of Americans. The "rich" lifestyle of Americans. Technically, we are rich compared to them majority of the rest of the world.

 

[Danoff]

You're missing it. I'm not talking about all good and all evil. I'm saying evil stems from the love of money and the things money can do. Look at 9/11. Why do the muslim extremists hate us? Many reasons but the two biggest are our lifestyle and we side with Israel. Bin Laden even said it himself that he hates the lifestyle of Americans.

The Bin Laden example is a great argument AGAINST your position here. Bin Laden hates American excess. That's not a love of money, but a hatred of us for spending it.

But Bin Laden isn't the one who carried out 9/11, the dead hijackers are the ones responsible for that, and they most certainly did not do it out of a love of money and are most certainly evil.

Your statement "evil stems from the love of money and the things money can do" could not be more incorrect. I've established that evil often comes from motivations that have nothing to do with money, and that much good comes from the love of money.

Case closed. Why are you not on board with me at this point?

 

[Kylehnat]

Bin Laden even said it himself that he hates the lifestyle of Americans.

Yet bin Laden himself is incredibly wealthy from his family's construction empire. It can't be jealousy, because if he wanted to, he could have that same "American" standard of living. However, he chooses to use his money to fund terrorism. Someone else might use that same money for philanthropy. That money is not causing the evil; the person is.

 

[Swift]

The Bin Laden example is a great argument AGAINST your position here. Bin Laden hates American excess. That's not a love of money, but a hatred of us for spending it.

But Bin Laden isn't the one who carried out 9/11, the dead hijackers are the ones responsible for that, and they most certainly did not do it out of a love of money and are most certainly evil.

Your statement "evil stems from the love of money and the things money can do" could not be more incorrect. I've established that evil often comes from motivations that have nothing to do with money, and that much good comes from the love of money.

Case closed. Why are you not on board with me at this point?

Because you're still missing it. Bin Laden hates the Amercian excess...why would he even care if he didn't love his money and possessions so much? Who pulled the strings to manipulate those men to fly into the twin towers?

Yet bin Laden himself is incredibly wealthy from his family's construction empire. It can't be jealousy, because if he wanted to, he could have that same "American" standard of living. However, he chooses to use his money to fund terrorism. Someone else might use that same money for philanthropy. That money is not causing the evil; the person is.

Right, so when did I say that money is the root of evil?

 

[Danoff]

Because you're still missing it. Bin Laden hates the Amercian excess...why would he even care if he didn't love his money and possessions so much?

What does our excess have to do with his money?

Who pulled the strings to manipulate those men to fly into the twin towers?

Did those men do it out of a love of money? When a psychopath goes on a murdering spree does he do it for a love of money? Does the cannibal eat people out of a love of money? Does the rapist rape out of a love of money? Does the suicide bomber kill out of a love of money? Did the crusades result from a love of money? Did hitler kill jews because he wanted money? Are people racist/sexist/bigoted/adulterous out of a love of money?

What the hell does evil have to do with money??

 

[Sage]

Is it our fault that he hates good things?

Let me put it this way: Let’s say the “typical American lifestyle” was to live in a cave and hunt boars with big spears. (No money involved.) Now what if Bin Laden said that we hates the lifestyle of Americans? Does that suddenly mean caves or spears or boars are evil, or that evil necessarily stems from them? Of course not – it just means Bin Laden is a tosser, like he’s always been. (On an off-topic note, it’s amazing how much British slang I unconsciously pick up on GTP.)

Money is not the root of evil. The love of money is not the root of evil (I quite like money – it gets me nice things).

Irrationality is the root of all evil.

But that’s not the point of this thread.

 

[Kylehnat]

Right, so when did I say that money is the root of evil?

I didn't. I was just using that statement to point out that bin Laden is a hypocrite, and that his particular fortune could be used for good as well as evil. The person who controls that money is the ultimate decider.

 

[ExigeEvan]

That, and because cash has no real value, we can account for money virtually, obviously.

A UK 2p coin made before 1988 is actually worth 3p because of the price of copper!

And as a few have already said money is a replacement for simple goods exchange which would mean we're all driving round in pick-up trucks just to go to the shops.

And danoff, I've never touched economics in school, and I'm not even sure if it's part of the Maths A/S level.