Daft_ishWhy is currency so essential?
Makes it easier to buy food and pay for rent.
My landlord doesn’t want to barter for goods and services on a monthly basis.
I being obtuse, for sure, but why does your land lord need you to provide him goods and services?
It’s nice to have something to eat.
Food, people make food in excess.
They make that food for money.
Just money?
Hot women are usually all over the farmers but the farmers are usually about those dolla dolla bills yo.
For the things the money buys. Because it’s really though to trade food directly for them.
Do they? I’m pretty sure only about one in three humans works in food production. I think it is reasonable for them to expect the other two to give them something for their food in return.
Landlords exist to extract value.
To pay for more goods and services that extract value.
And we exist to extract value from agriculture. We’ve developed to a point where it’s both possible and desirable to live in close proximity to one another. It’s possible because ag is so successful and scalable, and it’s desirable because new opportunities are possible when everything is nearby. So that’s the trade off you made. To afford the city life, you accrue value through city opportunities and you trade it in exchange for the goods from service providers. The alternative is that you run your own farm. Ask yourself how many farmers you know! And you’ll see which decision most people make.
All to say, we shouldn’t think of value extraction as a uniformly bad practice. We all do it and we need to do it because each square acre of land doesn’t provide the same goods and services.
Going back far enough, scarcity is the answer. We technically live in a post-scarcity world now. But we are bound by the models we developed when it existed.
I wouldn’t say we are completely post scarcity, but enough of the producers of goods create enough artificial scarcity in order to keep prices high and the train moving. Unfortunately, I don’t see the paradigm changing until we have a major altering event in which many people perish.
VindictiveJudgeWe’re only post-scarcity for certain things in certain geopolitical regions, and even then, logistics of distributing those things is a problem. Computers, for example, will always be scarce in their current form because the raw materials to build them are naturally scarce, can only be extracted so fast, and have a limited ability to be recycled. We have a shit-ton of them, but they’re still scarce.
I hear you on the resources needed for computers being scarcer. But this might still fall overall under human induced scarcity. If we lived in more communal ways, the whole approach to personal computers could change, for instance, in a way that increased access in a more sustainable way. In no way do I believe that will happen, ofc. Just as we're not likely going to go from every household owning one or more televisions to having, say, a shared theater in every neighborhood
There is definitely human induced scarcity. I debated including that distinction.
No worries. I do think that a major tipping point towards true post scarcity will be when we can figure out and deploy nuclear fusion, though we’ll still be mired by price gouging until we demand better.
I’m not certain near infinite energy will solve scarcity. Humans will simply use up all the available energy anyways until we eventually run out of whatever previously “infinite “ resource we’re using. We’re very good at this type of optimization.
I don’t think it’ll solve it either, but it’ll certain help. The beauty of fusion is that it can and will produce, at scale and maturity, more than we can consume, leading to an unprecedented technological revolution.
More than we can consume right now. We used to think this about oil as well. Humans will seek to reach this limit as quickly as possible. It will certainly create new technologies. However I don’t think it will solve scarcity problems for everyone since many of those issues are not resources or technology but politics. We choose to deprive certain humans of their basic needs.
FaceDeerYou answered your question in the sentence right after your question. The landlord owns the property and so he can do what he wants with it. He's letting you live there but has decided he wants something in exchange for letting you live there. If currency didn't exist he'd want something else in exchange.
Making the assumption ownership is a valued currency of course.
Which is arguably a bootstrap-paradox; we need capital to participate in capitalism, for which we need - cause without capitalism what would we do with our capital.
Are you suggesting people shouldn't be allowed to own stuff? There are very few economic systems where people aren't allowed to own stuff and they tend not to be popular. Most of the people who are complaining about landlords and rent and whatnot really just want to own their own houses.
I mean like owning things is a human concept not a physical law, so yeah I can imagine a society exists where nothing is owned
Can’t say if it’d be better or worse than our current cause were not trying it, but tbh I’d be happy if instead of solely me being able to use ‘my’ drill for example, the whole community can whenever they require.
Sounds a hell of a lot more efficient to me if we work together not apart
I mean, in a perfect world, yes. The issue comes up when someone wears out or breaks the drill, and it needs to be replaced or repaired. Whoever spends time and resources ensuring that we have a drill needs to be compensated somehow, because that’s time they’re not spending on making sure they have food and shelter.
Follow along that line of reasoning for a couple steps, and you end up with some kind of economic system, and likely some kind of enforcement system, so you’re suddenly back at an early stage proto-state/government.
BrikoXConsider what we used as currency before it was currency. You would have to barter before, which was inefficient. Common currency saves you and everyone involved time. Instead of having to barter for every item, which would also require you to do carry all of those items, you can just pay with currency now.
Time, agree, time is what is essential to everyone here on this planet.
I’ll trade you 6 lima beans for a salt packet.
No, I need this salt for lima beans.
We can think of it as a universal language for trading. It doesn’t matter what item you eventually want, you can trade money to get it.
Extropolating, want, or greed, is what gives money its value?
The ability to purchase items you want with money gives it value.
Want, greed, hunger, sickness, lust… nearly every flaw and benefit has been translatable to currency at some point in history. I feel like you’re focused on the negative but, for instance, take my partner - they suffer from hypermobility and would be unable to build their own home (most of us would be unable arguably) currency allows us to make an exchange at the the absurd levels of value that equal a house without needing to shuffle around herds of thousands of cattle.
That’s not exactly true. Barter was never used like that in the past. People used gift giving systems or other trust based systems in daily life. Barter was only used with strangers and that was not a common occurrence. These trust based systems do work in smaller settings but break down in large settings where interacting with strangers is the norm.
kevincoxA lot of cultures ended up with effective currencies. Whether that was grains of rice or chickens there ended up a small number of items that had a well understood value and ended up being the default item of trade, not because the receiver needed those items but because they were known to be easily exchanged with others.
Simpsons meme aside –
Those with currency can have significantly more options than those without it. I’m of a privileged state where if I wanted to drop everything and visit another country for two weeks, there’s nothing stopping me financially. Not many people have that luxury.
Your comment made me realize that OP wasn’t asking about why we need currency as a society, but why people keep trying to get more money.
I hate when the post title and post content ask two seemingly different questions, lol
It’s a hard question to ask. I’d rather pin down why it’s essential then ask why it’s deemed the only thing that is essential.
it’s essential then ask why it’s deemed the only thing that is essential.
This is a very blanket statement and going to need a source here.
it’s essential then ask why it’s deemed the only thing that is essential.
This is a very blanket statement and going to need a source here.
People… deem money… you kddn me?
No not really. Seems like you’re putting this pressure on yourself.
Even if I were "putting pressure on myself your inclination that I’m the one who has deemed money the mist essential thus providing you with your sought out evidence. Now kind sir, I say good day.
That’s fair.
Hope you see other alternatives because there’s a wide world out there that don’t believe money is the only aspect of life.
Lemmy supports editing posts, deleting posts and making new posts - if a question is obtuse the author can always take it down and post something more precise and less open to misinterpretation. Of it’s a language barrier issue I’m sympathetic but this just seems to have been a needlessly clickbaity title.
Providing clarification is important…but to me, it seems prudent to just ask what one actually wants to know in the first place.
Honestly XY is hard to put into practice.
It wants the Asker to elevate themselves to the level of thinking as the Answerer and have the forethought to ask “the right question”.
But it lacks the perspective of what it means to be new at something. When you’re new, you have no context of what the hell anything is. So you throw spaghetti at the wall and ask is this how you make pasta.
I think in this case, the OP should’ve just chosen one question and put it in the title, then left the post text blank.
If the question they wanted to know didn’t get answered, they could’ve had conversations with the commenters where they gave more detail about why they asked the question.
A post consisting of two different questions in two different places (and nothing else) just seems counterintuitive to me.
Who dude, just answer the question. If answering or asking doesn’t appeal to you just move on.
I thoroughly enjoy all the answers I’ve received and the discussion around it. Sorry I don’t live up to your “no stupid questions” question standard.
God, that was such a funny joke back in the day. One of the moments where the writers were at the top of their game.
Because that philosophy has won over the most people.
I didn’t say it was the best. You may or may not believe that living in a yurt foraging mushrooms might be the best life; but “western “ civilization has deemed capitalism to be the way.
Under capitalism people need money to use for the things they want that they cannot make themselves.
A wise man once said “Money can’t buy me Love” —but it certainly improves your bargaining position
I should note that currency and capitalism are not the same thing. Pretty much every existing economic system has currency of some form, it's just a way of tracking the relative values of various things so that people can make agreements about who gets what.
This is a very important distinction. Even socialism and communism can use currency to track value.
It lubricates economic activity (not a lewd joke). It makes it easier to exchange shit, which leads to a more robust economy. Would you rather barter?
snooggumsSometimes I would rather barter because the additional effort would make things more important instead of all the mass produced crap that is ruining the world. A robust wconomy tends to mean an excess of stuff we don’t need.
But it wouldn’t reeally work out that way, just wishful thinking.
IonAddisBecause it’s very difficult to get things you need to live solely through barter. Many trades are very niche, and an economy that uses money allows those trades to continue being viable parts of society.
Like, think of plumbing. If everything goes well, you don’t need a plumber. But when you do…you really need it. Now imagine being the plumber who wants some bread and eggs but the farmer has no problems currently that needs the plumber’s skills. Plumber can’t eat, leaves profession, there’s now no plumber when the pipes do break.
Obviously, the next thought here might be, “Well, why doesn’t the plumber say if they get eggs and bread now, they’ll come and fix your toilet later if needed?” But that sort of re-invents credit, right? “I’ll trade 3 future plumbing problems for 3 boxes of eggs now.” If you have that, why not money?
So basically, money is very useful. It can be traded for many things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get if you were only able to offer as barter a specific item that might be rejected by the other person you want to barter with. Money is a “universal” trade good, and it’s also easy to store (you don’t have to have lots of physical room to store your Universal Trade Good).
The BEHAVIOR of people surrounding this very useful thing can absolutely be suspect, depending on the person (greedy sociopaths hoarding wealth)–but that’s a human thing, not because money is innately a bad thing. It’s a social problem, not a technology problem. You could totally have a greedy hoarder storing up a non-money trade item too…see people and toilet paper/sanitizer during Covid.
MinnesotaGoddamYou can either barter or you can have currency. Currency is the means through which the economy functions. You need something abstract to indicate value. That’s currency.
The first question has been answered already a few different ways. As to the sub-question:
Why do we focus solely on this one aspect of life?
It’s because we as a society lost track of other aspects of life, e.g. relationships for the sake of relationships- which if we question our basic humanity, we also need. Instead we focus on materialistic requirements, both for basic survival but also for status, security, and comfort. I would argue that second aspect (status) is an indirect (and inefficient/ineffective) means to accomplish the forgotten parts of life (relationships).