Poll: Money

[Skeleon]

that's what I'm trying to say

okay now I really am confused haha

Maybe I just misunderstood the extent of what you are aiming for.
It did not sound realistic to me at all but purely utopian.

 

[Bendon]

Let's improve upon what we have

that's what I'm trying to say

okay now I really am confused haha

Improving on what we have means improving on the effort of labor.

Money is just the X to a big algebraic formula, we just need to find faster ways to solve it.

This is an excellent point.
How would you go about it?

that's what I'm trying to say

okay now I really am confused haha

Maybe I just misunderstood the extent of what you are aiming for.
It did not sound realistic to me at all but purely utopian.

I'm really just throwing things out there for shits and giggles hoping to jump start some brain storming or discussion, so I don't mean to agree or disagree with people too much

 

[Vjam]

The way we handle money is fine

 

[Bendon]

I'm starting to see that any speculation on big changes would largely rely on the maturity of society and eventually humanity as a whole... so maybe money is advanced as we can handle it at the moment
that kind of restricts discussion. Oh poop.

Well this did better than my "Is stupidity the cause of all our problems" thread

 

[bjj hero]

2. Work doesn't guarantee good money. Firemen are a good example of this... :S

Your value in a job isn't particularly linked into how much work you do. Its dependent on:
a) How easy you are to be replaced? Can I get another cleaner tommorrow willing to work for peanuts? Are there only a few thousand people in the country with the skills I need to do the job? (eg surgeons). How quick and easy is it to train someone up to have the skills for the job (a cashier compared to a vet). Simple supply and demand.

b) How much money can you make me? IF as a pro footballer you will make my club 50 million a year, I'll pay you 10 million to do it, even if you're only playing sport. Its similar with CEOs etc.

Personally Id go back to gold standard. Your total currency is equal in value to your gold reserves. Fuck the markets.

 

[roboosh]

Finding an alternative to money won't end murders, rapes prostitution etc.
It's the only system that works.
End of thread.

 

[Bendon]

2. Work doesn't guarantee good money. Firemen are a good example of this... :S

Your value in a job isn't particularly linked into how much work you do. Its dependent on:
a) How easy you are to be replaced? Can I get another cleaner tommorrow willing to work for peanuts? Are there only a few thousand people in the country with the skills I need to do the job? (eg surgeons). How quick and easy is it to train someone up to have the skills for the job (a cashier compared to a vet). Simple supply and demand.

b) How much money can you make me? IF as a pro footballer you will make my club 50 million a year, I'll pay you 10 million to do it, even if you're only playing sport. Its similar with CEOs etc.

Personally Id go back to gold standard. Your total currency is equal in value to your gold reserves. Fuck the markets.

I know HOW it works. I'm asking could it work better, could it be replaced with a new system etc...

 

[Ken Korda]

2. Work doesn't guarantee good money. Firemen are a good example of this... :S

Personally Id go back to gold standard. Your total currency is equal in value to your gold reserves. Fuck the markets.

I don't understand this Libertarian idea of return to the gold standard. The price of gold fluctuates as much as the value of currency. How is tying money to gold intended to provide stability? As far as I can see it only restricts economic growth by making the volume of capitalavailable to countries much more inflexible (although, give the damage economic growth is destined to inflict on our environment this may in the long run be beneficial).

The OP is correct; money is not managed in an effective manner. Free Market Capitalism is designed to concentrate capital into the hands of an ever decreasing number of people. The world consists of a finite quantity of capital in a number of forms and currently it is unevenly distributed.

This distribution is largely due to luck of birth. If you are lucky enough to be born into a country with a high concentration of capital you are greatly advantaged. You can't seriously beleive that people in the developing world don't work as hard as those in the industrialised states? Does someone who earns £100,000 a day in the banking sector work 100,000 times harder than some who sorts through landfills to find things to sell for £1?

Firstly, people need to get past this ludicrous idea that taxation is someho injust. Taxation is not the government stealing your money, taxation is the fee you pay for permission to extract capital from a state; the more capital you extract the more you have to pay.

Secondly, developed countries need to stop imposing free market economic ideology onto developiong countries. It leads to massive inequalities and high unemployment; all the capital genrated as profit is exported back to the developed states at the expense of the poor.

Government is largely an expression of the wealthy in society because they can afford to donate to the politicians who will favour their interests. It is out responsibility to view potnetial candidates in this light, ignore whatever the media say about them and focus on the facts of their proposed policy. Only when we can ignore the media image consturcted by the wealthiest portion of society can we create governments who will address the problems with the current monetary system.

 

[Bendon]

snip!

This is exactly what I was hoping to see.

 

[Ken Korda]

snip!

This is exactly what I was hoping to see.

Hooray! Do I win anything?

 

[bjj hero]

This distribution is largely due to luck of birth. If you are lucky enough to be born into a country with a high concentration of capital you are greatly advantaged. You can't seriously beleive that people in the developing world don't work as hard as those in the industrialised states? Does someone who earns £100,000 a day in the banking sector work 100,000 times harder than some who sorts through landfills to find things to sell for £1?

I think I mentioned this in post 46. Earnings have nothing to do with hard work.

You are right that the price of gold fluctuates but it tends to be more stable than currency.

 

[Bendon]

snip!

This is exactly what I was hoping to see.

Hooray! Do I win anything?

AIG stocks! Congrats!

 

[Zer_]

***Snip***

The Federation don't officially trade amongst themselves but when interacting with other species they will more often then not trade things. Weather it's knowledge or a material product the Federation is always ready to trade something that they have for something that they need or may be interested in. It's the sort of trades that are mutually beneficial for both parties which is more then I can say for today's Capitalist society.

"Picard's two statements from "The Neutral Zone" and "First Contact" as well as Jake's stance in "In the Cards" may have been meant to be subjective. As seen from the outside or by someone from the 20th/21st century, Federation economy may largely work like Picard suggested. At least within an idealistic organization like Starfleet. But there must be some sort of monetary system, and if only for internal accounts. After all, building a Sovereign-class starship consumes far more energy, material and man power than a Type-6 shuttlecraft. This must be accounted for in some way. Still, we wouldn't expect Picard to lie when he says, "there is no money". He may be right in that the cost for ship may not be correlated in any way to the cost of living. Most likely because there is nothing like cost of living any longer, in which case he would have better said something like "money isn't used any longer in every-day life". In the 24th century, there may be plenty of energy for everyone to get whatever he needs from the replicator. Industry, power generation and infrastructure is highly automated. There is so much of everything that no one would need to work. Maybe there is a high unemployment rate, and the few people working in these fields are quite respectable. Either that, or there are also many "fun" jobs besides that. Either way, the social position is still determined by the reputation of the job, only that payment seems to play a minor role. But money or Federation credits may still be necessary to purchase goods or services that are not ubiquitous. Clearly anything handmade or any service like Sisko's Restaurant would belong into this category. The loss of cultural values would be too sad if all this did not exist any longer."

We cannot and we should not compare the economy of the Federation to 20th century communism, even if there are certain parallels in the ultimate goals (that were never close to be reached in any implementation of communism). Communism was an ideology to liberate exploited workers by expropriating the capital owners in an act of revolution. Quite contrary to that, the Federation economy may have developed in a slow process, owing to a tendency in which money became unable to keep up productivity any longer. The reasons may be twofold. Firstly, it is already visible now that Western industrial (secondary) societies are turning into service (tertiary) economies and ultimately into financial (quaternary) economies. Automation has largely replaced human power. Hardly anyone is still "productive", in a way that his workforce would be needed to produce new values. The quaternary economy we are facing would just shift around assets, which would gradually lose its equivalent in the form of industrial goods. Secondly, the availability of plenty of energy may give the death blow to the idea of money as a driving force. There is clearly no money equivalent to something ubiquitous.

The Federation is also a non-intrusive organization. It is an open society and thus money really does exist within the Federation. What is really meant by Picard's statement that money no longer exists in the Federation probably means that within the Federation will not pay using any currency on a large scale when dealing with other organizations. For example: A Bolian (Bolians are part of the Federation and their planet retains a market economy) entrepreneur wants to open a mining complex within Federation space. The Bolian will then be given a charter with conditions. The mining complex will be free to operate freely within Federation space, and the Federation itself may send supplies to the mining complex in exchange for raw materials. Any materials that are not sent to the Federation can be sold to whoever the Bolian wishes.

Someone can survive and live a life within the Federation without using any sort of currency. Rewards for good work are promotions to higher ranks or positions within an organization and the gratification of knowing that you are doing your job and doing it well. If a member of Starfleet wishes they can acquire wealth, but within the Federation itself it holds no true value. As a result most acquisition of wealth within the Federation is for hobby type purposes or more personal interaction with other species that may be within or outside of Federation space. One example of that interaction is Quark's bar in Deep Space 9.