Life with no currency? (serious answers only please)?

Question

How do you think society and civilization would be if currency had never been invented? Better or worse and why? Again please no google or wikipedia websites. If I wanted googles opinion I would have asked them.

You only have a need for currency if you insist on giving one type of goods or services more value than another. For instance if we can agree that the grain you can grow is just as valuable as the pottery you make then you have no need for currency. One of the replies states that without currency there would be a greater need for gold or silver. Yet it is the discovery of gold and silver that make currency necessary. Gold and silver have no actual practical use. You can't use them to make plows as they will bend under the pressure. You can't use them for cooking untensils or dishes because even low amounts of heat make gold susecptible to melting. The only usage they have then is as jewelry which creates class distinctions. My pottery and your grain can be considered equal value. The same can be said for the carpentry or stone carving skills you provide. As well as the hide tanning and metal working skills. After all You can't plow unless someone makes a plow for you requiring ...

...metalworking and that metalworker won't have time to learn and practice his skill if someone does not grow grain for him. Or you won't have pottery vessels to store the excess grain you grow if I don't make pottery vessels for you but I won't have time to learn and practice my trade if someone else doesn't grow grain for me. All our skills are interdependent on each other.

Answer 1

Life with no currency:
1. We would have refined the barter system to suit the present century. Might and cunning will benefit.
2. An other way of looking: No capitalism? Alternative -The virtue of selfishness will be the order of the day.
3. Bags and packing materials will have to be produced more to carry for barter.
4. Transportation of materials would have been a good business, than now.
5. Gold will be more important to possess.
6. Transactions in business will be messy.
Accountal will not be easy.
VR

Answer 2

Anthropologically speaking, there would be no "civilization" without currency. There are four anthropological sociopolitical systems: band-level, segmentary society (sometimes called tribes), chiefdoms, and states. Only band-level societies do not have what we would call "currency." This is because they are hunter-gatherers, most often nomads, who have no land-based agriculture.

Agriculture, as you should know, is the root of all evil. Before agriculture there was no such thing as wealth. Before wealth, there was no such thing as war. Why do we go to war? To get the wealth, or to keep someone else from having it. Agriculture creates a system of subjugation between the haves and the have-nots. It ties people to one place, creating a larger gap between the elite class and the lower classes in terms of geography and leisure time, especially during drought or famine. It has an extremely negative impact on medical conditions resulting from malnutrition.

So imagine if we never planted corn. True, we never would have built our great monuments. But there would be no war (maybe territorial skirmishes, but nothing that we know as war). There would be a shorter life expectancy, but more of your life would be spent doing the things you enjoy. Your average workweek (hunting and/or gathering food) would be between 15 and 17 hours. And if you're a woman, you basically spend the whole day gossiping while you're foraging. How awesome is that? (there's sexual division of labor in band-level societies). Our population would remain well below the carrying capacity of the land, we would participate in food sharing behaviors (don't want to do any of your 15 hours today? have a mango on me!)

Most importantly, band-level societies have collective non-exclusive ownership. Everything belongs to the band as a whole. I mean, spouses are spouses and kids are kids, but the band as a whole helps raise the children. You have your own clothes and tools and weapons, baskets and tents etc, but you don't actually own them. There's a sense of courtesy within the band: no one uses your stuff without asking, but it's hard to say no if they do. I hope I'm getting this across well, I'm just trying to remember the stuff from my intro arch class (my concentration focuses on chiefdoms, so I know a lot more about them).

So I guess the answer would be that life would be mostly better.

But we wouldn't have libraries or TV, which would ruin my day.

Answer 3

Even if you established a pure barter economy some goods would take on the function of currency. People would have a stronger work ethic in order to exchange service for essntial goods. Getting up in the morning and going to work would take on a new sense of immediacy in order to fulfill the acquisition of goods that have sesonal avaiability. A bolt of cloth, a bushel of corn , a gallon of water, hard goods of all kinds would become the currency of existence. Might be tougher to be a criminal - tough to run away with enough corn to make it worth your while. Don't think you can eliminate the currency effect - there is no food fairy to bring you your meals and human nature being what it is you won't be able to appoint a working class to provide for everyone else. They will expect to receive from the communal kitty goods and services in proportion to their efforts during production.

Answer 4

It seems likely that people would be closer to the sources of production, producing food and goods themselves and also trading primarily with their closer neighbours.

The biggest difference from where we are now is that there would be more responsibility. Those who sell us goods have little responsibility for quality -- and if we don't like something our choices are other huge stores where they don't care much either. Way different from when the butcher who sold you the dodgey piece of meat was your neighbour and needed your carpentry skills.

Consider food. We spend huge amounts of money on convenient but nutrition-free food that's been shipped back and forth around the country and the world. We're losing the knowledge and ability to cook for ourselves, in part because we devote so much our time to pushing papers around to earn the money to buy our convenience food.

Our current systems increasingly separate us from actual production. This can only happen via the mediation of some form of currency.

Answer 5

I remember the Star Trek Next Generation movie that dealt with the Borg... and the question was asked how society delat without money. Picard answered that money was no longer needed, because society was more interested in bettering itself, and individual growth and improvement was more important.

We are a long way from a utopian situation like that. A world without money, where everyone shared their products, foods, etc., is a dream. It lends itself to pure socialism. Human nature is such that we are too greedy, evil, and selfish at this state in our evolution, to think of such things.

Without money, and thus without the greed factor, etc., I would imagine that the world would have a better chance to becoming better. It could focus on getting along with each other, curing diseases, etc. It's a noble goal. But not attainable at this juncture.

Answer 6

I dont think there would be a organized "society" without some form of currency. Perhaps family groups certainly because of the need to take care of or contribute to people you loved but this contribution of your time & efforts stop at a certain point. Then you require some sort of compinsation for your time & effort that is now being taken away from your loved ones.
There would certainly not be any sort of organized society.

Answer 7

I would think that it will be a chaotic world.

1. We can't get everything we want on ourselves. Some people are better at producing some things as compared to others. For example, I can make cups but not so good at growing vegetables. I will try to exchange my cups with my neighbour who can grow very delicious vegetables and he has surplus to exchange with me. The goods we use to exchange things is a form of currency in this case!

2. If there is no currency and people will have no way to get other things from others, they will try to expand their territory. The more land area you have, the more food, trees to make stuff and rivers to get water. The world will be filled with families that will want to have more and more children to protect their territory. Their survival depends on the amount of land area they have.

Answer 8

There would be more barter. The way it was in the old days when a doctor would get paid with home canned goods or maybe a ham from the fall hog. People would trade for what they wanted.

Answer 9

Throughout time there has always been some type of currency. Whether it be goats, cow skins and chickens or money , gold, labor or oil. Man has a need to be compensated. Simple

Answer 10

it would be good b/c everyone will have what they want and there would be diff like rich and poor and everyone could make what they needed. they would all live together as a big helpful and hardworking family, they girls did the house work then did work and the men helped with the house work and went to work too, some would be baby sitters..ah it'll be great