121–125 of 125 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Money is just a paper form of trust. Although it's impossible to know with 100% accuracy, a lot of historians believe that the origins of money tied up in the creation of empire and slavery. As you say, smaller societies didn't need money and worked on favors. As armies began being created, soldiers wanted something concrete up front, because they could die before you repaid the favor. So they settled on precious m…
Money enables you to exchange goods without worrying about having the exact thing your neighbor is looking for. Shiny rare metals were money for awhile, and I guess the thing that people tended to value most, gold etc., ended up representing the universal trading platform. Arguing that the creation of money was tied to the creation of armies sounds like a political view that someone might push alongside the promise o…
I wasn't penning some Marxist screed or making a value judgment about the nature of money. It's awesome because it means I don't have to farm the food that i eat. I specifically stated where that statement came from. You may try to call it political, but coin money was tied to the raising of armies. Before that, people just relied on an elaborate credit system. Coins originally were not used as a medium of exchange, they were just a way to represent quantity.
> Yet, animals fight over food. If humans didn't have money, we'd fight over that or something else that maintains our health and well being.
Eh, history and anthropology are murky on this subject. Personally, I think we focus too much on the role of competition in history and discount the role of cooperation.
are people really "useless" if they do not provide labor to make rich people richer?
if the economic system can't make a profit off your presence, are you "superfluous"?
is this the mentality that would cause our "leaders" to abandon health-care for the large majority of our population who will soon be unable to afford insurance?
and please don't tell me that a _job_ is necessary to make people feel useful. many wealthy people seem to be able to do nothing productive at all, without having doubt about their right to exist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money enables you to exchange goods without worrying about having the exact thing your neighbor is looking for. Shiny rare metals were money for awhile, and I guess the thing that people tended to value most, gold etc., ended up representing the universal trading platform. Arguing that the creation of money was tied to the creation of armies sounds like a political view that someone might push alongside the promise o…
> Arguing that the creation of money was tied to the creation of armies sounds like a political view that someone might push alongside the promise of peace on earth. I wasn't penning some Marxist screed or making a value judgment about the nature of money. It's awesome because it means I don't have to farm the food that i eat. I specifically stated where that statement came from. You may try to call it political, but…
Okay, well, you're the one who believes money was created to pay armies.
I'd argue that the notion of exchange of some goods for different goods precedes that and has a lot more to do with cooperation. A promissory note is just a natural evolution of exchanging goods. It's my signature saying, yes I owe you x bananas because you gave me y tomatoes. Doesn't matter if it comes from a state or individual. Same concept.