If you removed money, imagine where we’d all be as a society
Probably dead or living in the stone age.
There’s so many jobs that people don’t enjoy but are necessary. Nobody enjoys working in the middle of an australian desert at 40°C in a lithium mine. Nobody enjoys collecting your stinking trash. Nobody enjoys sitting in a store for 8 hours a day, scanning groceries. Nobody enjoys working in a warehouse for 8 hours.
However, these jobs and many more are vital for todays society.
toxicity of money, wars and hate!
You make it sound like wealth and wars are an invention of capitalism and not something that has existed basically since the dawn of time, even as something you can observe in primates, albeit on a much smaller scale.
Like, half of the jobs you listed would be automated out pretty quick in a world without money, out of the other ones, a few would be rendered obsolete without profit motive (pretty sure we can find something better for batteries than lithium, and why would you need someone scanning groceries if there was no money?). What’s left can be rotated out or done by lottery, and those doing the undesirable labor get to have more luxury items or whatever. It’s not hard to imagine, people have been doing it for centuries.
pretty sure we can find something better for batteries than lithium
Trust me, bro
would you need someone scanning groceries if there was no money?
Because this is the most efficient way of keeping track of how many goods leave your moneyless store, and ensuring assholes aren’t just taking everything for themselves and hoarding it. Tracking how many goods leave the store at any given time allows you to order an appropriate amount to keep things in stock so that people who need things don’t go without, and is especially important for perishable goods like fresh produce.
What’s left can be rotated out or done by lottery,
People have different skill sets and specialties. Many jobs take years of training and practice to reach an acceptable level. Also, you just invented state-sanctioned slavery/a non-military draft. What do you do with someone who refuses to perform their lottery-assigned job?
and those doing the undesirable labor get to have more luxury items or whatever.
That’s literally the system we have now, but more authoritarian, since someone has to decide what is a “luxury good” and how much undesirable work is required to attain a given level of luxury.
people have been doing it for centuries.
Citation needed. Concerns: authoritarianism; scaling; maintenance of the modern standard of living
If there are so many refutations, then it should be trivial to point me to one. Assume I am an idiot who doesn’t know how a search engine works - I very well might be. Would you be able to point me to one of these innumerable refutations that would disprove me - otherwise, how am I to learn?
Why do libraries work?
I’m not sure what you mean here. If you explain your point of view, I can explain mine. But I will point out that libraries are not a full, functioning society - just part of one.
Fine. Sure. A few starting points since you asked in good faith:
For historical examples of non-market/cooperative organization, see Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons (1990), which documents real communities managing shared resources without privatization or central coercion. David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years also covers many societies that operated through reciprocity/obligation rather than modern monetary exchange.
I can point you to some great podcasts if you want.
For historical examples, Revolutionary Catalonia (1936–39) and numerous Indigenous communal systems demonstrate large-scale cooperative production/distribution outside traditional capitalist structures. See the previous Debt: the First 5000 years and just SO MUCH research. Maybe Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia would be a good place to look.
My library point wasn’t “libraries are a whole society,” but that they demonstrate distribution based on shared access/need rather than direct purchase can function effectively. Public institutions already allocate many goods/services this way.
As for undesirable labor, societies don’t need to choose between “profit motive” and “slavery.” Additional leisure, prestige, reduced hours, or enhanced benefits can incentivize difficult work just as effectively as wages. Automation can also reduce much of the repetitive labor currently done purely because it’s cheaper than innovating away the need for it.
I’m not claiming a moneyless society would be simple or easy—just that the idea humans can ONLY organize through profit incentives is historically and empirically false.
There’s so many jobs that people don’t enjoy but are necessary.
I take it you asked all 7 (or whatever) billion then?
Nobody enjoys working in the middle of an australian desert at 40°C in a lithium mine.
Who says they’d need to? You talk like someone would need to do that because right now capitalism demands more production!
Nobody enjoys collecting your stinking trash. Nobody enjoys sitting in a store for 8 hours a day, scanning groceries.
Again, if we didn’t produce so much garbage, products with layer upon layer of plastic, we’d make glass and clay pots and grow, make and reuse locally making less garbage all the way but then in the 90s you had to collect bin bags off the street, now its all wheelie bins, if my health allowed I would happily go round collecting rubbish.
Also I’ve had issues with drains in the past and when I asked them about the job, they actually enjoyed the challenge. So I think you’re confusing people who do a job because too much demand means people doing jobs for the money rather than less demand would actually mean people wouldn’t even need a set job. Feel like drains on Monday, go for it. Had enough and feel like helping someone tin food on Tuesday, go for it.
Look at Animals, how many animals work 2 jobs just to survive?
Nobody enjoys working in a warehouse for 8 hours.
Another thing thats only a thing because capitalism demands we keep producing more and more shit. That washing machine that used to last 10 years now breaks after the warranty because some riches want more money and power!
It amazes me how blinded people are to a capitalist free world. Look at the waste now, the plastic pollution and then look carefully at the next package you buy and ask “does this really need ‘this’ much packaging? Do i care if this new spade I bought with all its shiny cardboard and plastic protection, arrived with a scratch? But even if the TV was scratched, does it really matter so long as it worked as intended?
But then I have no kids of my own and every year I feel better not having brought kids into this mess because unless you’re born into money now there is very little to offer kids in the near future right. 😕
We have a certain standard of living right now that is only maintainable that way.
we’d make glass and clay pots
Lmao.
people doing jobs for the money rather than less demand would actually mean people wouldn’t even need a set job
Yes, that’s how it generally works. Most jobs that people expect this day and age are not enjoyable. Are there people who’d do them for free? Yes. But not on a massive scale that works for billions of people.
Look at Animals, how many animals work 2 jobs just to survive?
What a retarded comparison. Probably the dumbest you could’ve made.
Animals don’t have access to a network of goods and services, they also don’t live in a city with potentially millions of inhabitants. They don’t have internet, they don’t have healthcare, they don’t have delivery drivers, plumbing, electricity or anything that we know from modern life.
With all due respect, but if that’s something you strife for, get a few like minded people and go live on an island. Nobody is stopping you. There, you can live free of capitalism. But you also get all the disadvantages.
It amazes me how blinded people are to a capitalist free world
We had a capitalist free world and it was shit for the most part. People got killed, life expectancy was shit, education was shit, extreme poverty was rampant (WAY more than under capitalism) winters were harsh and potentially deadly - bro you talk like someone who just played 12 hours of manor lords straight. You’re romanticizing a time that was just straightup terrible for the most part.
And if you’re referring to “modern” communist countries, ask yourself why so many people try to flee from them and why the regimes actually made leaving the country illegal.
Look at the waste now, the plastic pollution and then look carefully at the next package you buy and ask “does this really need ‘this’ much packaging? Do i care if this new spade I bought with all its shiny cardboard and plastic protection, arrived with a scratch? But even if the TV was scratched, does it really matter so long as it worked as intended?
You’re talking about minor individual problems. How is this a problem that warrants the abolishment of capitalism? Why not just fix that singular problem? You’re finding a small scratch in the wallpaper of your house and instead of just fixing it, you want to tear down the entire house? All of these things are SOCIETAL problems that are not the fault of capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t force companies to use excessive plastic for each cucumber - it’s the customers expectation that makes companies do that.
Probably dead or living in the stone age.
There’s so many jobs that people don’t enjoy but are necessary. Nobody enjoys working in the middle of an australian desert at 40°C in a lithium mine. Nobody enjoys collecting your stinking trash. Nobody enjoys sitting in a store for 8 hours a day, scanning groceries. Nobody enjoys working in a warehouse for 8 hours.
However, these jobs and many more are vital for todays society.
You make it sound like wealth and wars are an invention of capitalism and not something that has existed basically since the dawn of time, even as something you can observe in primates, albeit on a much smaller scale.
Like, half of the jobs you listed would be automated out pretty quick in a world without money, out of the other ones, a few would be rendered obsolete without profit motive (pretty sure we can find something better for batteries than lithium, and why would you need someone scanning groceries if there was no money?). What’s left can be rotated out or done by lottery, and those doing the undesirable labor get to have more luxury items or whatever. It’s not hard to imagine, people have been doing it for centuries.
Trust me, bro
Because this is the most efficient way of keeping track of how many goods leave your moneyless store, and ensuring assholes aren’t just taking everything for themselves and hoarding it. Tracking how many goods leave the store at any given time allows you to order an appropriate amount to keep things in stock so that people who need things don’t go without, and is especially important for perishable goods like fresh produce.
People have different skill sets and specialties. Many jobs take years of training and practice to reach an acceptable level. Also, you just invented state-sanctioned slavery/a non-military draft. What do you do with someone who refuses to perform their lottery-assigned job?
That’s literally the system we have now, but more authoritarian, since someone has to decide what is a “luxury good” and how much undesirable work is required to attain a given level of luxury.
Citation needed. Concerns: authoritarianism; scaling; maintenance of the modern standard of living
I didn’t cite sources because the literal decades and decades of refutations to your arguments already exist.
But I will leave you with this: Why do libraries work?
If there are so many refutations, then it should be trivial to point me to one. Assume I am an idiot who doesn’t know how a search engine works - I very well might be. Would you be able to point me to one of these innumerable refutations that would disprove me - otherwise, how am I to learn?
I’m not sure what you mean here. If you explain your point of view, I can explain mine. But I will point out that libraries are not a full, functioning society - just part of one.
Fine. Sure. A few starting points since you asked in good faith:
For historical examples of non-market/cooperative organization, see Elinor Ostrom’s Governing the Commons (1990), which documents real communities managing shared resources without privatization or central coercion. David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years also covers many societies that operated through reciprocity/obligation rather than modern monetary exchange.
I can point you to some great podcasts if you want.
For historical examples, Revolutionary Catalonia (1936–39) and numerous Indigenous communal systems demonstrate large-scale cooperative production/distribution outside traditional capitalist structures. See the previous Debt: the First 5000 years and just SO MUCH research. Maybe Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia would be a good place to look.
My library point wasn’t “libraries are a whole society,” but that they demonstrate distribution based on shared access/need rather than direct purchase can function effectively. Public institutions already allocate many goods/services this way.
As for undesirable labor, societies don’t need to choose between “profit motive” and “slavery.” Additional leisure, prestige, reduced hours, or enhanced benefits can incentivize difficult work just as effectively as wages. Automation can also reduce much of the repetitive labor currently done purely because it’s cheaper than innovating away the need for it.
I’m not claiming a moneyless society would be simple or easy—just that the idea humans can ONLY organize through profit incentives is historically and empirically false.
I take it you asked all 7 (or whatever) billion then?
Who says they’d need to? You talk like someone would need to do that because right now capitalism demands more production!
Again, if we didn’t produce so much garbage, products with layer upon layer of plastic, we’d make glass and clay pots and grow, make and reuse locally making less garbage all the way but then in the 90s you had to collect bin bags off the street, now its all wheelie bins, if my health allowed I would happily go round collecting rubbish.
Also I’ve had issues with drains in the past and when I asked them about the job, they actually enjoyed the challenge. So I think you’re confusing people who do a job because too much demand means people doing jobs for the money rather than less demand would actually mean people wouldn’t even need a set job. Feel like drains on Monday, go for it. Had enough and feel like helping someone tin food on Tuesday, go for it.
Look at Animals, how many animals work 2 jobs just to survive?
Another thing thats only a thing because capitalism demands we keep producing more and more shit. That washing machine that used to last 10 years now breaks after the warranty because some riches want more money and power!
It amazes me how blinded people are to a capitalist free world. Look at the waste now, the plastic pollution and then look carefully at the next package you buy and ask “does this really need ‘this’ much packaging? Do i care if this new spade I bought with all its shiny cardboard and plastic protection, arrived with a scratch? But even if the TV was scratched, does it really matter so long as it worked as intended?
But then I have no kids of my own and every year I feel better not having brought kids into this mess because unless you’re born into money now there is very little to offer kids in the near future right. 😕
We have a certain standard of living right now that is only maintainable that way.
Lmao.
Yes, that’s how it generally works. Most jobs that people expect this day and age are not enjoyable. Are there people who’d do them for free? Yes. But not on a massive scale that works for billions of people.
What a retarded comparison. Probably the dumbest you could’ve made.
Animals don’t have access to a network of goods and services, they also don’t live in a city with potentially millions of inhabitants. They don’t have internet, they don’t have healthcare, they don’t have delivery drivers, plumbing, electricity or anything that we know from modern life.
With all due respect, but if that’s something you strife for, get a few like minded people and go live on an island. Nobody is stopping you. There, you can live free of capitalism. But you also get all the disadvantages.
We had a capitalist free world and it was shit for the most part. People got killed, life expectancy was shit, education was shit, extreme poverty was rampant (WAY more than under capitalism) winters were harsh and potentially deadly - bro you talk like someone who just played 12 hours of manor lords straight. You’re romanticizing a time that was just straightup terrible for the most part.
And if you’re referring to “modern” communist countries, ask yourself why so many people try to flee from them and why the regimes actually made leaving the country illegal.
You’re talking about minor individual problems. How is this a problem that warrants the abolishment of capitalism? Why not just fix that singular problem? You’re finding a small scratch in the wallpaper of your house and instead of just fixing it, you want to tear down the entire house? All of these things are SOCIETAL problems that are not the fault of capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t force companies to use excessive plastic for each cucumber - it’s the customers expectation that makes companies do that.