So what's the attraction of moneyless economies?

[mindstalk]

"No money in the future" is a common thread in parts of the Left. I think it's in Marx's communism, if not a lot older. In science fiction, we've got Star Trek (at least ST IV and TNG/DS9), Banks' Culture ("money is a sign of poverty"), MacLeod's Solar Union, probably LeGuin's Anarres, and "post-scarcity" economies in general -- which tend to mumble if you take them literally and ask for a planet.

But why? Why is this so popular, as opposed to the leftism where everyone has enough money?

The way I see it, any group that has a lot of trade will have a money, hacked out of fungible high-demand goods or IOU time-labor scrip if nothing else. So to me saying "no money" is effectively saying "no trade", which doesn't sound very attractive.

One might appeal to computers and advanced barter exchanges, but while that might make it possible to work out "you give an IOU to make A in return for B, to trade for C, to trade for D, to trade for E which you actually want", I suspect a money would arise anyway.

There's so much automation that no one ever does anything useful, but that doesn't seem fun. There's that plus people doing things just for fun, and I don't rule it out entirely... but if there's a high-demand artist, maybe people end up bribing her to help on their projects.

"To each according to their need" is great and all, but what about getting what you *want*?

[This was better written in my head, I may revise later]

[Edit: discussion on RPG.net is circling around "post-scarcity" being the key: it's not that money is to be gotten rid of (well, that probably is an appeal some of the time) but that post-scarcity is the appeal, after which there's no role for money. Whether post-scarcity is realistic, even at personal nanoforge tech levels, is another matter.]

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Granting that competition isn't ever going away, is money going to exist as long as the human race does, or might increased intelligence (whether computer-mediated or not) make money obsolete?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Well, obsolete to be replaced by what? You might reply "we can't know, it takes increased intelligence" but while valid that doesn't seem productive.

Basic resources seem to be energy, individual elements in manipulable forms, time and attention, and location (largely with respect to large lumps of not easily manipulable matter.) If you have transmutation elements can get folded into energy in all its potential and material forms. If you focus at that level, do you drop money in favor of explicit accounting? I don't know. But the original money was rare resources, and food, perhaps we just go back to that.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

You could have complex accounting systems which pro-rate things based on how much the individual wants them. But all you'd really be doing that way is creating a clunkier substitute for the market -- which does that already. There seems little point in doing so.

Money is not "the root of all evil," but it is a messenger. And shooting the messenger has a long history. People don't like money because their own lack of money, or the rising price of something they want, is sending them a message they don't want to hear.