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Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources. Capitalism is one method of allocating scarce resources. If some resources become so plentiful that they
by jstalin 12y ago
Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources. Capitalism is one method of allocating scarce resources. If some resources become so plentiful that they are no longer scarce, they are treated as having no value. I don't see how everything could possibly become non-scarce. Maybe energy, maybe even food, but we still need to build homes, transportation of some sort, to provide medical care, and go into court when someone screws you over. And because of that, there will need to be a way of allocating resources.
Economist Ludwig von Mises a long time ago demonstrated that a cashless society couldn't function because there would be no method for effectively allocating scarce resources. While it's nice to predict some moneyless utopia in the future, it presents real and insurmountable problems.
- crdoconnor 12y ago>Economist Ludwig von Mises a long time ago demonstrated that a cashless society couldn't function because there would be no method for effectively allocating scarce resources So I guess he never heard of the Incans.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoa cashless society couldn't function because there would be no method for effectively allocating scarce resources I'd put it slightly differently. We need a method for the allocation of scarce resources and money is the one we have developed that has the least transactional overhead, and any methods that seek to replace it not only needs to look at achieving a better allocation, but also needs to be able to do it with less overhead or else you lose any benefits gained.