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In a true, real post apocalyptic world, you can't eat gold, you can't have sex with it, it will not cure your sickness nor will it feed your vices; therefore, i
by mixedCase 9y ago
In a true, real post apocalyptic world, you can't eat gold, you can't have sex with it, it will not cure your sickness nor will it feed your vices; therefore, it has little to no value.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoBut someone might exchange that gold with you for food, for sex, for medicine, and for what feeds your vices, as they have for millennia.
- mixedCase 9y agoOnce a semblance of civilization establishes again? Then yes, it's likely. During times of true hardship where the general population is at risk of dying of starvation, disease or being murdered by a once upstanding citizen, and there's no way to readily exchange that gold for needed supplies? No. You would consider yourself lucky to be able to exchange a bar of solid gold for a few cans of food.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoTrue, it would by necessity be a barter economy.
- programmarchy 9y agoOr similarly, an informal debt economy. If I give Bob a pair of boots, he'll be more obliged to give me one of his pigs when I tell him how nice and fat they look a month later. Informal debt economies really only work within tribal communities where social pressure has more leverage, but it does solve the double coincidence of wants problem.