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Services can be exchanged without money and interchangeably between goods as well. I do this regularly. I rebuilt someone's Windows machine the other day in ex

by meaty 14y ago

Services can be exchanged without money and interchangeably between goods as well. I do this regularly. I rebuilt someone's Windows machine the other day in exchange for the fruit trees in my garden being pruned.

Evbn 14y ago
That's not post-scarcity. That is inefficiency. And it is still capitalism. Money is a bookkeeping system for IOUs, not an economic operating structure.
- craig552uk 14y ago
  It's a barter/trade system, not capitalism. Capitalism is primarily about generating profit, and there's no profit without money. It all went downhill after the Enclosure Acts.
  - JeffL 14y ago
    Even under barter and trade, there is profit. To go with the GP's example, one persona valued having his trees pruned more than he valued the time he spent upgrading the computer, and vice versa. Both parties profited and ended up better off or else they wouldn't have made the trade. The lack of money involved just makes it potentially less efficient if the trade isn't well balanced, or potentially more efficient if they can avoid the friction of the taxman by avoiding money.
ierceg 14y ago
This works only if the two nodes in the network have exact matching needs/abilities. This is rare even in small groups. If you will, money is a message is a message passing protocol. I don't care what's on the other side and how the message (money) was generated - all I care is that I received a message (money) and then I sent other messages (money) to other actors in the network (obviously I sent back something in exchange and so do the other nodes). Then they generated their messages and so on. This way all I need to know are the nodes immediate to me to work it out. I don't care how complex the message graph becomes, it's all irrelevant to me and to others as well. If you don't have that then you have to broadcast all that you offer and all that you need and somehow create the graph to work it out all out. Money is a cheap way of abstracting all that.

by meaty 14y ago

Evbn 14y ago

That's not post-scarcity. That is inefficiency. And it is still capitalism. Money is a bookkeeping system for IOUs, not an economic operating structure.

craig552uk 14y ago
It's a barter/trade system, not capitalism. Capitalism is primarily about generating profit, and there's no profit without money. It all went downhill after the Enclosure Acts.
- JeffL 14y ago
  Even under barter and trade, there is profit. To go with the GP's example, one persona valued having his trees pruned more than he valued the time he spent upgrading the computer, and vice versa. Both parties profited and ended up better off or else they wouldn't have made the trade. The lack of money involved just makes it potentially less efficient if the trade isn't well balanced, or potentially more efficient if they can avoid the friction of the taxman by avoiding money.

ierceg 14y ago

This works only if the two nodes in the network have exact matching needs/abilities. This is rare even in small groups. If you will, money is a message is a message passing protocol. I don't care what's on the other side and how the message (money) was generated - all I care is that I received a message (money) and then I sent other messages (money) to other actors in the network (obviously I sent back something in exchange and so do the other nodes). Then they generated their messages and so on. This way all I need to know are the nodes immediate to me to work it out. I don't care how complex the message graph becomes, it's all irrelevant to me and to others as well. If you don't have that then you have to broadcast all that you offer and all that you need and somehow create the graph to work it out all out. Money is a cheap way of abstracting all that.