What do you think will happen if all the gold and all the money in the world suddenly disappeared?

Question

What do we really need to survive: Air, water, food, shelter or protection from the weather, the sun and this planet that holds us all. The absence of any one of these, will mean the end our existence for sure. Without gold and money, nothing will physically happen to us. But what do you think will happen? Would the things that we do in our everyday life still make sense?

Answer 1

If you think about it, money is just a mix of paper, and cloth. It could be replaced, even if we went to some other form, and at the worst case scenario... We would revert to the barter system.
CyberNara

Answer 2

Gold wouldn't really matter because we don't use gold to back up our currency. Just about every country basically uses monopoly money. It's called a fiat currency.

Our lives would be worse off without money because it would be harder to trade for the things we want. People first started off with bartering, where they would bargin good for good. But if who you are trading with someone who doesn't have anything you want, and vice versa, you seem to be stuck. But then currency came about to make these transactions easier. A lot of things have been used as currency--shells, feathers, metals. Gold has been the most commonly used currency because of it's value to weight ratio and it is malleable and can be made into coins. So now everyone had something to trade with--money. So without money, we would not die, but our living conditions would be so low we would probably want to.

Answer 3

If all the money and gold was gone we'd still use some form of currency. Man has always held objects of value in certain ways and have traded other things for them. All societies have been a barter system from the beginning of time.

I give you my body for work at a job. You give me green paper that is SUPPOSE to represent gold.

If money and gold were taken out we'd replace it with clam shells and bottle caps. Money and gold are what we use because we place value on it. Therefore, nothing would happen to our society if they were taken away.

Answer 4

Firstly, if all of the money were to disappear tomorrow about three quarters of the western worlds population would try to go with it. Many people are fixated on money, either trying to get more or trying to get enough to pay the bills.

If all of the money were to disappear we would find it very hard to live for the first few years as our entire system is based on money. You by food with money, you use the energy from the food to go to work to earn money, you buy food with money, ...., see the cycle.

After this time of adjustment one of three have happened things would happen.

One: another form of trading system would be established e.g. barter,

Two: (and more likely if we continue our march towards numbers on paper money) a free flow form of work system would be created where by I do work for you, you do work for someone else, he does work for someone else, etc. This then entitles me to food, shelter, goods. Not as a function of I have this much and only this much but instead I can have all that I want as long as I give as much as I have got,

Three: We would have all killed each other in our mad dash to try and survive in this post money Apocalypse.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Do you think money really has any material value?It is only a piece of paper meant to simplify transactions. Gold is valuable because it is very scarcely found on earth, the only useful purpose it has is maybe for some research purposes otherwise I am sure we could do with ornaments made of other metals.And we will soon find a new currency maybe some kind of piece of wood with holograms.

Answer 6

well......fist off that is impossible. but lets pretend it isn't and that it did. i suppose all the countries would get together and find another form of currency. some countries dont use money or gold for currency. some of them use aspirin. money is just a basis of the foundation of economics. diffrent countries have diffrent currencies. no matter what there has to be some form of currency that is accepted by everyone with a certain value. if we lost our form of currency in the u.s. they would find another. there is to much stuff here and countries live by currency and riches. if we lost our currency its not like we would just not have a currency and everybody would be poor and nothing would be sold anymore. what would happen to the economy. what about all those corprate buisnesses. what about the taxes that have to be paid to support the u.s. troops and everything else. what would happen to everybody who gets paid for working hours. none of it would stop. the government would print more paper money and find something other than gold to use as a backboard for our currency. you cannot destroy currency. currency is a thing made by humans. it is an idea. 1000's of years ago they used steel as currency because it was very rare and was considered valuable and was accepted by everyone else to have a certain value. see a currency has to be accepted by everyone. what if you sell a t.v. for some aspirin and then you take that aspirin to the guy down the street to buy groceries. what happens if the guy doesn't accept your aspirin to have the value that it does or doesn't want to accept it at all.....then how could you get groceries....the aspirin would be useless. but currency will never dissapear.....even if it did we would instantly find something else to give in exchange for merchandise and that thing would have been accepted as a currency.

edit: it would never happen though. the government wouldn,t allow it. they would just print more paper money then find a new backboard for our currency. then they would distirbute the paper money as neccisary and establish the value of it based on how much of the new form of currency we have. they would determine how much it is worth compared to the previous currency and any diffrence in the value of currency could be seen in the price of merchandise cost of taxes and your hourly wage......things would continue as they normally do and there would be nothing to worry about. countries live on currrecny and their economy. the economy will not stop because of loss of currency they will just make a new currency instantly distribute the money and the economy would continue. but since something like this would never happen there is nothing to worry about.

Answer 7

It is the politicization of money and the value attached to it as a status symbol that are problems. We have become too competitive and trivial. When people do not have a more substantive essence to themselves inside, they focus on the physical aspects of their environment. In asceticism, one must divorce oneself from the physical world. This is why some people escape into themselves, even making treks to foreign countries and experiencing meditation.

Ambition is not the enemy. It forces us to live up to a standard and move forward, it is about self-direction. In existentialist theory, people learn to manage their emotions and affairs in an organized fashion in order to achieve self-subsistence and a higher sense of self. It is the master-slave mentality that must be broken. Money is a function of our social values.

Answer 8

Even if money and gold are not there, we would still know who is wealthy and who is not..... we would continue to do the same things to become more and more wealthier than others just as we are now doing. Wealth would be in terms of material possessions like how big a house, how many houses etc. etc.

Answer 9

legal tender is usually something that is agreed upon by both producers and consumers in terms of it's value, so if nobody really cared about gold, then we wouldn't have the gold standard that makes 1/10 of a cent's worth of paper worth $100.00. back in ancient times, people got paid in salt, hence the term salary. so the next time you order a margarita, you're actually licking off someone's loot from your glass.

Answer 10

We'd revert to barter, I'm pretty sure. Money is just a symbol for wealth - not the wealth. If there were severe shortages of an item in a crisis, all the money in the world couldn't make it appear.