I get the history as to why we got to our current economic situations, but no one is arguing for a system that casts off current economic issues that are pushing humanity towards destruction. I’m not saying this can happen over night or even within our current life time, but it’s obvious that capitalism and even socialism has reached the end of their usefulness.
The idea that social structures have a “logical end” is pure hubris and have no basis on reality.
Not until we reach a post-scarcity society.
We’re already there. The only thing preventing it is tribalism and the world oligarchs. We have the knowledge and capabilities, just not the willingness.
I’m not sure you know what post scarcity means.
Imagine a world where nobody needs to work, but everyone can still have any material desire filled at any time.
Think Star Trek. Unlimited energy resources, combined with replicators which use that endless energy to create unlimited stuff without any labor required.
It’s also important to note that a lot of that scarcity is artificial. Sure, we’re far from post scarcity, but strife is exacerbated by capitalist systems in all but the most privileged.
There’s actually no such thing as humanity without money; it’s as key to our collective cognition as language.
The Salish Tribes existed in the PacNW for over 13,000 years without money.
Weren’t they the ones that used shells as money?
Wampum was used by Eastern Costal tribes as a storytelling aid.
In the Salish Tribes, dentalium shell necklaces were used as a status symbol/indication of social rank. Some tribes used the necklaces as a type of currency, but I’ve only heard the “some tribes did this” part; never anything about which specific tribes used dentalium as currency.
Obviously, anything that holds perceived value can be traded.
Source: went to junior high in a school that taught two full years of Haudenosaunee (also called Iroquois) history.
Salish source: I’ve been a volunteer naturalist in the Puget Sound for eight years with an annual training requirement, with entire days allocated to history of the original Salish tribe for the area where we’re working.
If trade occurs, then by definition they have currency; there are no barter economies.
You are confidently incorrect on this. Currency == money. Money is, for we hoi polloi, a barely consentual conversion and exchange system for our labor, hypothetically allowing us to convert our labor into readily fungible exchange units. Money, at the Capital Class level, is debt, and therefore control, i.e. power. Money is just how they keep score.
There are plenty of
bartergifting and Communist (“from those of ability to those of need”) economies, just on scales that fly below the radar of most economists. Your sweeping assertion leads me to believe that you may simply be ignorant of those non-monetary exchanges. Would you be willing to add more context to your assertion?Edit: I misspoke; crashfrog raises a valid point, and I meant gift economies.
No ethnographic studies have shown that any present or past society has used barter without any other medium of exchange or measurement, and anthropologists have found no evidence that money emerged from barter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter
What would be an example of the barter economy you’re certain exists? How do they overcome the need for double coincidence?
I misspoke, and you raise a good point. I meant gift economies, and that error is on me. And those are pretty well-documented. I’ll stick to my firsthand experiences:
- Waianae, Oahu in Hawaii. The weekly take-what-you-need-bring-what-you-can food exchanges there are a huge stopgap for food insecurity and also spur community bonding
- Burning Man - TTITD, regionals, and much of the hippie festival circuit have a robust gifting culture
