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Those who believe they own an entirely imaginary thing called "money" The fact that someone can write this is laughable to anyone that was ever poor in their l

by 300bps 11y ago

Those who believe they own an entirely imaginary thing called "money" The fact that someone can write this is laughable to anyone that was ever poor in their life. Money is not at all imaginary. It's quite real. The lack of money can ruin your day, your year, your life. As for what money is - it is a productivity storage mechanism. Once you've been productive it allows you to store that productivity in a fungible form. It allows you to exchange that stored productivity for the productivity of others, give it away to someone else or basically do anything you want with it.

ramblerman 11y ago
which hits the key point in Fuller's argument. In modern times thanks to scientific breakthroughs and the like, some people can be 100,000 times more productive than others with 1 invention. Should they then possess 100,000 times the share?
- kamaal 11y ago
  Yes, they should possess 100,000 the share or lets call that X for now. They deserve X because of the productivity impact that cascades to the remainder of humanity.
  - ramblerman 11y ago
    What cascades exactly when we haven't quantified the invention. ie. Curing cancer vs Curing Baldness vs Populating Mars Surely they are not equal, but curing baldness may very well be the most profitable in this world.
    - kamaal 11y ago
      What's profitable is decided by what people want, and we are no one to impose our priorities onto the world. Cancer isn't getting cured because it is not spreading virally. The day the threat level is same as Polio, Small Pox or such disease, the solution will be inevitable.
falcolas 11y ago
> Once you've been productive it allows you to store that productivity in a fungible form. What is a trust fund then? Were the folks on the receiving end of trust funds productive? How about high frequency trading? Is the money made from computers intercepting and manipulating trade prices the result of someone's productivity? Money has been divorced from productivity for quite some time.
- talmand 11y ago
  Where did the funds in the trust come from? Was that being productive? Just because the person receiving the funds is not being productive doesn't mean the person who provided the funds in the first place wasn't productive. As for high frequency trading, you may disagree with the means of production but that doesn't suddenly mean it isn't productive. Becoming efficient doesn't reduce productivity.
juliangregorian 11y ago
The fact that anyone was ever poor should be an affront to anyone who believes that money is real. People of your ilk are fond of resorting to the old canard "everyone needs a roof over their head and food in their belly". Well, there quite simply is an astounding surplus of such. Those who really believe that the lottery system we currently use of assigning who gets what is truly effective and just will have to answer for that someday. Money is only powerful because a quorum of people have mutually agreed to believe that it is. One of the things I enjoy pointing out is that the stock market is a wonderful example of the power of belief. When enough people believe it's going to crash, guess what happens?
- Drakim 11y ago
  What I feel many people miss is that goods and money are not synonyms. If there was a huge influx of money into the world, that helps exactly nobody because the amount of food, shelter and other goods has not increased. I find that people "get" this a lot easier when you start talking about coupons and IOU instead of gold and dollars. Nobody believes that the guy who is moving coupons back and forth between various piles with specific timing has truly earned the load of goods he gains. Instead, they rightly feel like he is cheating the system and taking without giving back. But in the real world, tons of people do tricks with money and get filthy rich from it, and that's just them "working smart". Meanwhile, somebody had to grow that potato, the actual tangible good, that he ate for dinner. What did he give back in return?
  - juliangregorian 11y ago
    Sure, and that reminds me of another great example for money's imaginary quality: The total amount of money in existence is many magnitudes more than it would theoretically take to end global poverty. However, no one dares attempt this, because it would knock the struts out that prop up the whole system (namely, debt).
    - floppydisk 11y ago
      The grandparent noted that while we can increase the amount of currency in people's pockets, that doesn't fundamentally change the number of goods and services available to the total population. If you define poverty as lack of money, then yes, we can fiat more than enough money into existence. However, if you define poverty as lack of access to goods and services, increasing the amount of money available won't work. Look at Germany in the wake of World War I. Money was flowing everywhere, but the amount of good and services available was minuscule in comparison causing rampant inflation to the point where it was more cost effective to burn the paper currency for heat rather than spend it.

by 300bps 11y ago

ramblerman 11y ago

which hits the key point in Fuller's argument. In modern times thanks to scientific breakthroughs and the like, some people can be 100,000 times more productive than others with 1 invention. Should they then possess 100,000 times the share?

kamaal 11y ago
Yes, they should possess 100,000 the share or lets call that X for now. They deserve X because of the productivity impact that cascades to the remainder of humanity.
- ramblerman 11y ago
  What cascades exactly when we haven't quantified the invention. ie. Curing cancer vs Curing Baldness vs Populating Mars Surely they are not equal, but curing baldness may very well be the most profitable in this world.
  - kamaal 11y ago
    What's profitable is decided by what people want, and we are no one to impose our priorities onto the world. Cancer isn't getting cured because it is not spreading virally. The day the threat level is same as Polio, Small Pox or such disease, the solution will be inevitable.

falcolas 11y ago

> Once you've been productive it allows you to store that productivity in a fungible form. What is a trust fund then? Were the folks on the receiving end of trust funds productive? How about high frequency trading? Is the money made from computers intercepting and manipulating trade prices the result of someone's productivity? Money has been divorced from productivity for quite some time.

talmand 11y ago
Where did the funds in the trust come from? Was that being productive? Just because the person receiving the funds is not being productive doesn't mean the person who provided the funds in the first place wasn't productive. As for high frequency trading, you may disagree with the means of production but that doesn't suddenly mean it isn't productive. Becoming efficient doesn't reduce productivity.

juliangregorian 11y ago

The fact that anyone was ever poor should be an affront to anyone who believes that money is real. People of your ilk are fond of resorting to the old canard "everyone needs a roof over their head and food in their belly". Well, there quite simply is an astounding surplus of such. Those who really believe that the lottery system we currently use of assigning who gets what is truly effective and just will have to answer for that someday. Money is only powerful because a quorum of people have mutually agreed to believe that it is. One of the things I enjoy pointing out is that the stock market is a wonderful example of the power of belief. When enough people believe it's going to crash, guess what happens?

Drakim 11y ago
What I feel many people miss is that goods and money are not synonyms. If there was a huge influx of money into the world, that helps exactly nobody because the amount of food, shelter and other goods has not increased. I find that people "get" this a lot easier when you start talking about coupons and IOU instead of gold and dollars. Nobody believes that the guy who is moving coupons back and forth between various piles with specific timing has truly earned the load of goods he gains. Instead, they rightly feel like he is cheating the system and taking without giving back. But in the real world, tons of people do tricks with money and get filthy rich from it, and that's just them "working smart". Meanwhile, somebody had to grow that potato, the actual tangible good, that he ate for dinner. What did he give back in return?
- juliangregorian 11y ago
  Sure, and that reminds me of another great example for money's imaginary quality: The total amount of money in existence is many magnitudes more than it would theoretically take to end global poverty. However, no one dares attempt this, because it would knock the struts out that prop up the whole system (namely, debt).
  - floppydisk 11y ago
    The grandparent noted that while we can increase the amount of currency in people's pockets, that doesn't fundamentally change the number of goods and services available to the total population. If you define poverty as lack of money, then yes, we can fiat more than enough money into existence. However, if you define poverty as lack of access to goods and services, increasing the amount of money available won't work. Look at Germany in the wake of World War I. Money was flowing everywhere, but the amount of good and services available was minuscule in comparison causing rampant inflation to the point where it was more cost effective to burn the paper currency for heat rather than spend it.