Would society be better without money?

No money, no barter...

We would work for the greater good of the community...

If so, how far should we go with possessions such that the world appears even...

Could it work?
Would you work harder essentially for nothing extra except praise?
How do we get there anyway?
Does it sound better to you?

Even without money, you can posess many material goods and personal qualities that others will be envious of. Without money may help the problems, but it won't stop them!

The theory is fantastic, and life would be much simpler that way, i agree. But the human race can always be counted on for being selfish and pro-active.

I prefer the idea of chaos...so i say no. Why deprogress mankind because some people are upset that they don't have as much as others.

let me tell you a little story about a friend of mine name communism Cameron U. Enism, or Cam for short. One day, he decided that he convinced his village that they should do away with money and possesions, so they did. Everything was great... for a while. Then basic animal instincts kicked in, like territory and, despite Cam's belief, possesions. Many people started to claim something was theirs and fights would break out. Life was hell, and Cam was devastated. He decided to fix things, so he became a leader and formed a new government. He knew people wouldn't like this idea so he forced them to and killed the ones that didn't listen.

To make a long story short, he opressed his people and forced them to work for next to nothing, then died after helping to start the bloodiest war in history involving all the tribes on his island.


so to answer your question NO

money is external, you would have to form something that was internally different, say pride. or selfishness,either one, because from the desire to "get ahead" you fall behind and take others with you. so its changing the people in the society not the things
what is in you, your heart, your mind, WILL come out.
so its not even about getting people to buy into a belief but changing there hearts and mind.

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If so, how far should we go with possessions such that the world appears even...

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Private property would be abolished everything would be owned in common.

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Would you work harder essentially for nothing extra except praise?

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Your work would benifit society as a whole the means of production would be owned in common by the working class (socialised) and as such benifit you therefore it would be in your own best interest to work hard.

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How do we get there anyway?

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There are many different theories about how to get to a Communist society depending on which variant of Communism you subscribe to (leninism,trotskyism etc). Lets say for argument sake your dealing with pure Marxist theory which states that a crisis or combination of said crisis in the capitalists system such as wars,famine,disease etc will contribute to a new qualitative understanding of proletariat political power. Basically full class conciseness is realized by the working class. A leninist will tell you that there must be a group of people who first realize class conciseness and lead the rest but this is nothing more than Leninist vangaurdism which is complete rubbish and often impedes transition to a classless society as we saw in soviet Russia (bourgeois revolution). There are two theories regarding revolution Russia was an example of the theory "revolution in one country" (stalinist theory) this type of revolution will usually lead to failure. International permanent revolution was developed by Trotsky and is a far more acceptable way to reach Communism.

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Does it sound better to you?

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Yes.

i think this can work at times, look at monastries. they did and sometimes still do require you to be a communist (except that they allow religion) no possesions, you dont require money as an individual etc, unfortunately for this to work on a global scale, there would have to be enough of everything for everyone to have what they want (like in star trek), otherwise some peoples greed would ruin it.

Would society be better without money?

As a principle of Utopia, yes.

Right now, no.

Things happen slowly. Its not money thats the problem but mentality. Take money away and we'd be forced into more wars on more scales (local to global). The fight for power is still there. I'd like it not to be, I think most would, but still some do, and a chain is a strong as its weakest link. Thats how some are..it does not mean we have to be like this.

I think we would just end up using money one way or another. We will start off with a barter economy. I will trade my cow for three of your sheep. Then we figure that it's more convenient not to take our sheep all the way to the marketplace and just use little shells to represent material value. Would society be better off without money? Sure, but then we wouldn't be humans.

So I guess there is a general consensous that mankind is not ready yet, until our own mentality changes communism can't take place. A society withought any form of money must be a very highly developed civilisation.

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So I guess there is a general consensous that mankind is not ready yet, until our own mentality changes communism can't take place. A society withought any form of money must be a very highly developed civilisation.

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I agree. After concideration i have come to the conclusion(nice explainion on the dif. commun, orders Das Kapital), that a moneyless or communism society for lack of a better word, is a very intelligent social and economic design. Though a society must be well educated and well rounded to accept the theory. Society today is not ready to handle such a step...

Also remember Anthem, Brave New World, and 1984....

Can we ever reach that point?

lol i dont care, i wont be alive then.

Good point.

But I get a thrill from thinking about such impossibilities. I'm a nerd in heart and soul

But here's another question: how would we live if not with money to aquire what we need from others?

Accordin to Marx everything will belong to everybody, there will be no private property