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OK, to be honest I've been looking for someone to actually debate this with. First of all, "proxy for efficiency" is my own terminology and seems quite sensibl
by 3- 17y ago
OK, to be honest I've been looking for someone to actually debate this with.
First of all, "proxy for efficiency" is my own terminology and seems quite sensible to me. We talk about productivity in terms of GDP per capita. Implicit in that is the assumption that money is its own value, which it isn't - money is at best a marker of value. But we reward people with the marker, not the value.
Second, your point of money being more efficient than other goods as a unit of value doesn't go anywhere. It does not get at the point Eisenstein presents, which is that the concept of trade exists because of ownership of scarce resources. If nobody owns anything, trade is nonsense.
Third, the Eisenstein thesis doesn't mention interest. Negative interest is mentioned in the form of demurrage in one of his closing chapters, as another way to define money. But his overall thesis is non-economic: that we have set ourselves up, in a variety of ways, to battle against nature and against each other. "Separation of self" is the term he uses, along with a variety of colorful New-Agey terms. I'm focused on the economic points in part because I hold a B.A. in economics myself, and there are some solid points made about economic systems outside our mainstream viewpoint - particularly with respect to prehistoric gift economies.
Your claim that the current wave of technology - by which you presumably mean online communications - was driven by monetizing efficiencies....that one seems a bit faulty. The Internet started as a military/academic project, not as an attempt to build a consumer market. As well, most open source software isn't built with a monetization in mind, but rather is a way for others to reduce their costs. In general the market doesn't build the technology, the market commercializes the technology after it becomes self-evident. The reason we have zillions of web startups is that the web still has so many new concepts to explore that everyone can be a do-gooder and monetize at the same time. The fact that a lot of people aren't monetizing the things they do online(for example, HN being free and user-driven) is the interesting part. That's a huge reversal of so much of history.
Your statement of technology not giving power to individuals seems incredibly wrong. The Industrial Revolution was organization-driven, but our current revolution, whatever you might call it, is acting to take apart organizations. Blogs vs. newspapers. Social media vs. mass media. Central office vs. virtual office.
- caffeine 17y agoI agree that money is a proxy for value. That still does not justify the unsupported claim that it "encourages all negative externalities", and causes "deep rifts and strife." I agree that economic activity can have negative consequences - but how is this caused by the mere existence of money? Being rewarded with the value is not more helpful than being rewarded with the marker - most people appreciate using their paycheck at their choice of restaurants, rather than simply trading code for hogs at the local bazaar. If nobody owns anything, trade is nonsense. Barring slavery, nearly everyone owns their time. Thus people own something. Until a startup solves death, that remains a scarce resource. The existence of scarce resources with ownership is thus fundamental to the human condition. Much (most?) trade involves the exchange of labor for "markers." Any time you do a favor for anyone, it's trade. Sometimes, they do you a return favor by giving markers. We can rename money to markers and trade to favors, but that's what it is. As for physical resources - their "ownership" is basically just a way of prioritizing access. So - you might prefer other ways, like waiting in line, or lotteries. When people have tried those ways, they've found that letting the guy with the most markers have the resource works out for the best. Obviously, you know this - so what do you think works better as a means of resource allocation? Third, the Eisenstein thesis doesn't mention interest He mentions several times (I'm referring primarily to his videos) an enthusiasm for instituting money that "decays," like bread, so that we are tempted to spend it more quickly rather than attempting to save it. I can't describe this idea as anything other than crazy, so I'm glad that you reject it as well. Monetizing efficiencies....that one seems a bit faulty It's true - I expressed myself poorly, and indeed the idea was unclear in my mind at the time. I think neither of us was right in our characterization of this so far. Technology and markets are, to me, each the seed of the other. Yes, technology creates new markets - but markets capitalize new (usable) technologies. You don't have to call them markets - you can call them patrons, such as those that financed da Vinci. Once again, however, markets appear to do a better job than feudal patrons. Increasingly, groups of patrons acting with good information can do a good job as well - but it remains a market, just a better-informed one. Our current revolution (/me degrades into general rant:) ... is not a revolution at all. The "Web2.0" line of innovation seems quite trivial - office online instead of offline, social voting - these are simply efficiency improvements on existing organizational memes. It's probably impolite to post such a comment on a YC board, but nonetheless - does anybody seriously think that this stuff is earth-shaking? Culturally, it might be; but technologically, it's just variations on a theme. Go check out the stem cell labs in Singapore; they're innovating.