if money didnt exist? would humans still exist?

Hunterers and gatherers didn't need money to live so how did they manage to grow the human population ?

I believe they invented money so that our society can grow? but did they realise that it would seperate us into two worlds? the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

If everything depended on your morale standards, the way you behaved, and the way you treated people, i think everyone would be millionaires and there would be no war, homeless people, poor families etc.. For example, you are giving a certain job and you have to do that job in order for you to earn this food, car, live in this house etc.. So if you want a certain thing you have to do your job for a certain amount of time.

I want everyones opinion on this and see what you have to say about it.

Heh, I was about to make a thread about how money dominates our exsistence, and without it the odds of having a great life are pretty slim.

Hunterers and gatherers didn't need money to live so how did they manage to grow the human population ?

I believe they invented money so that our society can grow? but did they realise that it would seperate us into two worlds? the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

If everything depended on your morale standards, the way you behaved, and the way you treated people, i think everyone would be millionaires and there would be no war, homeless people, poor families etc.. For example, you are giving a certain job and you have to do that job in order for you to earn this food, car, live in this house etc.. So if you want a certain thing you have to do your job for a certain amount of time.

I want everyones opinion on this and see what you have to say about it.

kato_

From a economic standpoint, money is just an abstract, a medium for exchanging one good/service for another. Think about it, you work a job which is providing a service, in return for this service, you get money which is then used to recieve goods and services equal to your output of service. If you think of it that way, money isn't the root of all evil because it is just an idea and a simplified way of understanding the process of giving and recieving.

Well it's the best way to assign resources and services to people.

If it wasn't there then the corrupt among us would steal and unbalance the economy into a collapse.

Money is needed. The way in which it's earned could be changed though. I suppose you'd want Communism? Or does that eventually lead to the destruction of money? >_>SolidSnake35

[QUOTE="SolidSnake35"]Money is needed. The way in which it's earned could be changed though. I suppose you'd want Communism? Or does that eventually lead to the destruction of money? >_>wemhim

Currency has always existed in one shape or form at every point in human existence.donwoogie

[QUOTE="donwoogie"]Currency has always existed in one shape or form at every point in human existence.wemhim

Nope, because then we'd have to also remove concept of ownership. For any trade to exist, we need money, and by money, I refer to the abstract rather than just paper. If you wanted to then take apples from the person whom the tree belonged to, you'd need to trade something in return, like pears from your pear tree. At that point of trade, pear is the abstract currency because you are buying his apples with your pears. You'd even develop an exchange rate in that minute of negotiation of how many pears for how many apples.

[QUOTE="wemhim"][QUOTE="donwoogie"]Currency has always existed in one shape or form at every point in human existence.donwoogie

Nope, because then we'd have to also remove concept of ownership. For any trade to exist, we need money, and by money, I refer to the abstract rather than just paper. If you wanted to then take apples from the person whom the tree belonged to, you'd need to trade something in return, like pears from your pear tree. At that point of trade, pear is the abstract currency because you are buying his apples with your pears. You'd even develop an exchange rate in that minute of negotiation of how many pears for how many apples.

That's true, but there's so many resoruces, I don't think anybody would need to protect their own apple tree in the woods. I mean, my house used to have like 1000 lemon trees, it's not like there wouldn't always be a free tree...
wemhim

Of course you would. You have your resources but they don't provide you with everything you need to live. Therefore, what you cultivate is used to obtain what you need. If you let everyone nab your apples...how do you purchase clothing, meat etc.

[QUOTE="donwoogie"]

[QUOTE="wemhim"][QUOTE="donwoogie"]Currency has always existed in one shape or form at every point in human existence.wemhim

Nope, because then we'd have to also remove concept of ownership. For any trade to exist, we need money, and by money, I refer to the abstract rather than just paper. If you wanted to then take apples from the person whom the tree belonged to, you'd need to trade something in return, like pears from your pear tree. At that point of trade, pear is the abstract currency because you are buying his apples with your pears. You'd even develop an exchange rate in that minute of negotiation of how many pears for how many apples.

Organic food can only supply food for 1/3 of the planet. GM foods would only have been invented through the drive and incentive for cash, aswell as the funding required to build the equipment. With no money, trade would be seriously depleted and thus resulting in less scientific breakthroughs such as the GM crops and medical health, etc...... We'd be probably be a lot worse off.

[QUOTE="wemhim"] That's true, but there's so many resoruces, I don't think anybody would need to protect their own apple tree in the woods. I mean, my house used to have like 1000 lemon trees, it's not like there wouldn't always be a free tree...
LJS9502_basic

Of course you would. You have your resources but they don't provide you with everything you need to live. Therefore, what you cultivate is used to obtain what you need. If you let everyone nab your apples...how do you purchase clothing, meat etc.

[QUOTE="wemhim"][QUOTE="donwoogie"]

[QUOTE="wemhim"][QUOTE="donwoogie"]Currency has always existed in one shape or form at every point in human existence.donwoogie

Nope, because then we'd have to also remove concept of ownership. For any trade to exist, we need money, and by money, I refer to the abstract rather than just paper. If you wanted to then take apples from the person whom the tree belonged to, you'd need to trade something in return, like pears from your pear tree. At that point of trade, pear is the abstract currency because you are buying his apples with your pears. You'd even develop an exchange rate in that minute of negotiation of how many pears for how many apples.

Organic food can only supply food for 1/3 of the planet. GM foods would only have been invented through the drive and incentive for cash, aswell as the funding required to build the equipment. With no money, trade would be seriously depleted and thus resulting in less scientific breakthroughs such as the GM crops and medical health, etc...... We'd be probably be a lot worse off.

[QUOTE="LJS9502_basic"]

Of course you would. You have your resources but they don't provide you with everything you need to live. Therefore, what you cultivate is used to obtain what you need. If you let everyone nab your apples...how do you purchase clothing, meat etc.

wemhim

Organic food can only supply food for 1/3 of the planet. GM foods would only have been invented through the drive and incentive for cash, aswell as the funding required to build the equipment. With no money, trade would be seriously depleted and thus resulting in less scientific breakthroughs such as the GM crops and medical health, etc...... We'd be probably be a lot worse off.

donwoogie

It's been economically proven that specialisation and trade is far better than simply producing everything on your own so trying to produce everything you need by yourself would simply result in a worse quality of life. Even in the most basic of human tribes use currency in one for or another.

*can't believe the amount of crap posted in the first post*

It's called communism, and it flopped.

*can't believe the amount of crap posted in the first post*

It's called communism, and it flopped.

2FacedJanus

Russian Communism did. and it's more then just a little like Feudalism.

[QUOTE="2FacedJanus"]

*can't believe the amount of crap posted in the first post*

It's called communism, and it flopped.

Hewkii

Russian Communism did. and it's more then just a little like Feudalism.

Yeh, the USSR used a perversion of the true concept of communism. Communism in its truest form negates the need for a head of state. If you've read animal farm, Old Major represents communisms true principles as Lenin would put them, Snowball represents Trotsky who created the theoretical communist nation but he was ousted by Napoleon who represents the perversion and corruption of Stalinism on true communists like Trotsky, Lenin and Marx.

Yeah, because we would resort to the barter trade. Commercial works would still be a part, but maybe we won't be as advance and possibly live longer as there will be no global warmingNapster06

Meh, global warming is irreversible now pretty much. In the UK, for a person to be carbon neutral, they must produce a carbon footprint of 3.000 or something, but public transport in the UK provides 5.000 for everyone in the UK so, if you sat at home with no electricity doing absolutely nothing, you would still not be carbon neutral.

YES! LIVE EVEN PEACEFULLY.

Money was not involved with the initial evolution of man. Hunters and gatherers ate off of the land and had either no desire to trade or traded only when needed, which may have been rarely. The stratification only game after man became agricultural. Take an Anthropology course.MattUD1

There was still trade at a very basic level. Women took care of the children whilst the men hunted for the food. They wouldn't have fed the women that food if the women had not provided the service of caring for the children.

[QUOTE="MattUD1"]Money was not involved with the initial evolution of man. Hunters and gatherers ate off of the land and had either no desire to trade or traded only when needed, which may have been rarely. The stratification only game after man became agricultural. Take an Anthropology course.donwoogie

There was still trade at a very basic level. Women took care of the children whilst the men hunted for the food. They wouldn't have fed the women that food if the women had not provided the service of caring for the children.

Considering humans existed before money....yes.LJS9502_basic

People would just trade in something else, like items.Bourbons3

Yes, but there are huge logistical problems to deal with when you resort to just trading. When you introduce money in the middle of the trande transactions, a lot of these problems go away.

Man has lived for centuries without currency... google "barter system". rimnet00

I'd argue that's still a basic form of currency. Societies that partake in that assign values to specific products based on applicability, rarity, and functionality. You're still giving up something you own in return for something you need from somebody else.

[QUOTE="rimnet00"]Man has lived for centuries without currency... google "barter system". xXBuffJeffXx

I'd argue that's still a basic form of currency. Societies that partake in that assign values to specific products based on applicability, rarity, and functionality. You're still giving up something you own in return for something you need from somebody else.

It doesn't fall into the definition of currency. Basic economics seperates the two forms of system, and for good reason.

[QUOTE="xXBuffJeffXx"]

[QUOTE="rimnet00"]Man has lived for centuries without currency... google "barter system". rimnet00

I'd argue that's still a basic form of currency. Societies that partake in that assign values to specific products based on applicability, rarity, and functionality. You're still giving up something you own in return for something you need from somebody else.

It doesn't fall into the definition of currency. Basic economics seperates the two forms of system, and for good reason.

Economic philosophy states that money is purely a medium for trade of one good/service for another good/service making it an abstract which means it does not necessarily have to be paper notes, it can be anything that you exchange for a service or good or use to barter for a service or good.

Well, money came into existence because it wasn't feasible to trade 100 loaves of bread for 2 donkeys and a chicken. Hence the creation of precious metal currency. Then that didn't become feasible, so the creation of fiat money came to fruition with gold backing them up. Now there's a complex process that gives our value which I do not fully understand.

Hunters and gatherer societies probably did barter. They just didn't use paper or gold as they had no use for them.

Anyways what the TC proposed seems utopian.