[JohannKaspurSchmidt]

I was wondering if anybody has any ideas for getting rid of monetary currency altogether for functioning societies.

As anarchists in order to get rid of the shackles and chains of government or the state we must find ways to throw off their greatest influence of them all which is endorsed circulation of money but by mutualist endeavors that elevates us over them.

I have my ideas with bartering and something that I am working on called service exchange which is a mutualist economic system that doesn't use monetary currency as a medium of exchange.

Taxation is obviously out of the question for us anarchists which is why there would also have to be a way to get people to volunteer working and donating to greater public services beyond individual or household exchanges.

I would like to hear other people's opinions on this.

[quetzalcoatl]

It would be fascinating to establish a type of coventry, not for exile but as a place where like minded people could attempt to establish a political order to their liking. Unfortunately all the vacant spots on earth are already claimed.

[Rainbow Crow]

It's really not hard, start a business or a club that follows your alternative view. Communists create communes and co-ops all the time. If it can't work within an existing government despite everyone pitching in together, it isn't going to work as government.

A service exchange could be interesting but you would need some way to value different people's labor since different people work at different skill levels and with different productivity levels. Maybe some kind of quality rating system.

[mikema63]

LETS system an option for you?

[SolarCross]

Money is a jolly useful way of facilitating trade between strangers and measuring value, the trick is to have a credible money system that does not depend on government for issuance and is immune to counterfieiting (licenced by the government or otherwise - inflation / debasement) and to theft (tax, confiscation). Bitcoin solves all these issues.

[Rainbow Crow]

The challenge with this kind of thing is that some people's labor needs to be valued more than other people's, otherwise the more challenging, dangerous and difficult jobs don't get filled.

The real issue then is what to do about banking, which unfortunately, I'm not sure any of us are qualified to try and answer.

[ralfy]

Searching for "transition towns" or "transition communities" and "barter" online reveals many resources, as well as related ideas such as local or community currencies.

[Someone5]

I was wondering if anybody has any ideas for getting rid of monetary currency altogether for functioning societies.

Yes, certainly. Among other things, look at the Technocracy sub-forum for an example of a well developed alternative. It's a sort of weird alternative that requires thinking about economics from a pretty different perspective, but it does meet your criteria.

As anarchists in order to get rid of the shackles and chains of government or the state we must find ways to throw off their greatest influence of them all which is endorsed circulation of money but by mutualist endeavors that elevates us over them.

I'm not sure that I would call "circulation of money" the chains that bind people. The chains are more about the accumulation and control of capital, not people exchanging units of value.

I have my ideas with bartering and something that I am working on called service exchange which is a mutualist economic system that doesn't use monetary currency as a medium of exchange.

Something like Ripple is probably a better approach than barter...

[Godstud]

Canada's just now getting rid of the penny. One small step....

[acvar]

Barter systems are much less efficient then monetary systems. Why use a abacus when you have access to a smartphone? The only reason some currently use barter systems is in an attempt to avoid taxation, but the governments have seen through this and are cracking down on barterers for thier cut. Resource based systems are nothing more then socialism with computers in charge. They like socialism are unable to solve the calculation problem and will lead to greater waste of resources.

Money is not the chains that bind us. It is one of the more freeing pieces of technology ever created as it greatly facilitates trade. The accumilation of capital is also not the chains that bind us. Once again it is a piece of technology that greatly increases our productivity which is to our benefit. The chains that bind us now as has always been the case is superstition. The belief in things that are not true and/or do not exist has always been what has held us back. The superstition that money has agency holds us back, but the main superstition holding us back today is the idea that some people have the right to rule over others. This is the nature of oppression. Everything else is just periphery. Money, capital... they are all just tools used in the advancement of a goal. They are not the problem. The goal is the problem. And the goal is subjugation, and that goal is based on a superstition.

[Someone5]

Barter systems are much less efficient then monetary systems.

Eh, depends on how its implemented.

Why use a abacus when you have access to a smartphone? The only reason some currently use barter systems is in an attempt to avoid taxation, but the governments have seen through this and are cracking down on barterers for thier cut.

Some of us simply consider barter to be more equitable and open. I'm very willing to barter for goods if others are.

Resource based systems are nothing more then socialism with computers in charge. They like socialism are unable to solve the calculation problem and will lead to greater waste of resources.

Gee, strange how corporations solve the "calculation problem" every day. Their internal operations are strictly command economies--yet they can "magically" figure out how to operate themselves. The so-called "calculation problem" is a huge load of horse shit which has long since been solved by basically every business that employs people.

When authoritarian top-down corporations routinely figure out how to assemble final goods from parts produced in factories spread all over the world, the insistence that command economies have a "calculation problem" is pretty crazy.

Money is not the chains that bind us. It is one of the more freeing pieces of technology ever created as it greatly facilitates trade.

Trade does not equate to freedom. You're just as much a slave whether your master intends to use the goods you produce for himself or trade them to others.

The accumilation of capital is also not the chains that bind us. Once again it is a piece of technology that greatly increases our productivity which is to our benefit.

I'd rather have 100% of 2 hamburgers than .5% of 200 hamburgers. Overall productive output may increase, but that does me no good if the distribution of that product is as absurdly inequitable as we find in capitalist systems.

The chains that bind us now as has always been the case is superstition.

Nonsense, people are obviously controlled by the private ownership of capital and the governments that follow from that practice.

The superstition that money has agency holds us back,

I don't know anyone who thinks that "money has agency", but it is certainly correct to say that the people who control most of the money do have agency. And that they use it in an aggressive campaign of class warfare against workers. Trying to deny the existence of the parasitic capitalist class is obviously wrong.

but the main superstition holding us back today is the idea that some people have the right to rule over others.

Sure, but the only way to solve that is to abolish the private ownership of capital.

This is the nature of oppression. Everything else is just periphery. Money, capital... they are all just tools used in the advancement of a goal. They are not the problem.

Capital isn't the problem... private ownership of capital is the problem.

[Eran]

Gee, strange how corporations solve the "calculation problem" every day. Their internal operations are strictly command economies--yet they can "magically" figure out how to operate themselves. The so-called "calculation problem" is a huge load of horse shit which has long since been solved by basically every business that employs people.

No, they don't. That is part of the reason that large corporations face dis-economies of scale, allowing smaller competitors to be more efficient.

Many large corporation use the franchise model which is another way of getting around the calculation problem.

Finally, the Socialist Calculation Problem issue only fully applies in a fully-socialist society. Corporations (like Soviet-block nations) live within a larger capitalist system. That wider capitalist economy provides Soviet leaders / corporate managers with invaluable information on the price associated with different intermediate resources. So as long as a price for an intermediate good is available on some market, the calculation problem is largely mitigated.

[Someone5]

No, they don't. That is part of the reason that large corporations face dis-economies of scale, allowing smaller competitors to be more efficient.

Many large corporation use the franchise model which is another way of getting around the calculation problem.

Your proposal here is simply incorrect. You are fundamentally misunderstanding the microeconomics involved--and, I would add, misunderstanding the calculation problem proposal.

Finally, the Socialist Calculation Problem issue only fully applies in a fully-socialist society. Corporations (like Soviet-block nations) live within a larger capitalist system. That wider capitalist economy provides Soviet leaders / corporate managers with invaluable information on the price associated with different intermediate resources. So as long as a price for an intermediate good is available on some market, the calculation problem is largely mitigated.

Utter nonsense.

A: The calculation propblem is a hypothetical issue for command economies... NOT socialist economies.
B: If the calculation problem hypothesis is correct, it would apply just as well to the non-market transactions occuring within a business. The intrernal operations of a non-cooperative business is about as close a model to a command economy as you can find. Franchises do not even remotely address this issue. Despite a corporations internal operations being an example of an entireky command economy, they can still manage to efficiently distribute and priduce goods... without any use of a market whatsoever.

[Eran]

The Socialist Calculation Problem refers to the problem of choosing between alternative production methods in the absence of a market in producer goods ("means of production").

If ALL the means of production are publicly/communally owned, i.e. if there is no market in those means of production, there is no mechanism for comparing alternative production methods in terms of cost (i.e. economic efficiency).

If a partial market for means of production does exist, the prices from that market can be used in non-market circumstances (including both command economy and internal corporate transactions) to facilitate efficiency calculations.

If non exists, decision-makers are in the dark.

[SolarCross]

I suspect that if a socialist commonwealth did ever come into being then in order for it to work at all they would end up having to implement some kind of quantitative measure of value, which is to say they would end up reinventing money and credit.

[Someone5]

The Socialist Calculation Problem refers to the problem of choosing between alternative production methods in the absence of a market in producer goods ("means of production").

You are misnaming it, since i is actually a hypothetical problem for command economies, not socialist economies. The internal operations of a corporation are an example of a command economy at work. How does Ford know how many parts need to get shipped from suppliers in the United States to a factory in Mexico for final assembly? It's not like the factory in Mexico is buying those parts on the open market--they're movements of material among Ford's own holdings. The Calculation Problem would suggest that there is no way for Ford to figure out how many parts they need to acquire to build their Fiestas in that Mexican plant, because there is no market feedback to indicate how many parts ought to get shipped. You might say that "oh, but Ford knows how well their cars are selling on the market," which is true except that it has essentially nothing to do with how many cars Ford decided to produce ahead of time. They can sort of kind of adjust that figure year over year, but you can do that without a market merely by having Ford dealerships communicate how many cars they distributed.

I mean, there is a basic issue at work here that the calculation problem cannot account for. How does Ford know how many spark plugs they need for their Fiestas being made in Mexico? I mean, literally, if the calculation problem is correct, then Ford's factory would have no capacity to actually figure out how many plugs were required.

I agree that it's ludicrous to suggest that Ford can't do this--obviously they know what parts go into a car, and they know how many cars they're making, so it's simple multiplication--but that's why I don't think the calculation problem exists at all. It's pretty evident that demand can be figured merely by looking at how quickly things get used, rather than relying on unclear price signals. Computers and ubiquitous networking provide an obvious solution to this, since inventory and sales patterns can be figured in real time as required, without any reliance on a cumbersome and uninformative price mechanism. Only relatively small businesses actually base such decisions on market prices--everyone else bases this on non-market communication between suppliers and customers.

You libertarians seem to forget that the calculation problem was proposed back in 1920--in the nearly one hundred years since, there has been a pretty radical shift in the world of logistics. Computers and the networking revolution have completely changed the nature of how things get delivered and how demands get communicated. The reliance on the market that may have made some sort of sense in the days of yore are certainly not the only option today, and the market is not, in fact, the tool of choice for corporations today.

If ALL the means of production are publicly/communally owned, i.e. if there is no market in those means of production, there is no mechanism for comparing alternative production methods in terms of cost (i.e. economic efficiency).

Sure there is. Are you just completely ignoring econometrics? Real, actual businesses use way more information than simple price to figure out what and how they're producing things; and to compare alternatives. If there is no market, these businesses would not substantially need to change how they compare alternatives... because market pricing only accounts for a small portion of the information involved in figuring that out.

If ALL of the means of production were communally owned, we would simply base or efficiency decisions on the basis of resource utilization or consumer preference, rather than trying to divine the demands of the public from a compound variable.

If a partial market for means of production does exist, the prices from that market can be used in non-market circumstances (including both command economy and internal corporate transactions) to facilitate efficiency calculations.

What a load of shit. Okay, so your argument is that as long as we maintain a market for bottle caps, the rest of the economy can be a completely command economy and it will work fine because we can always reference our decisions to the bottle cap market? That's quite absurd, but since apparently the calculation problem is only apparent when the economy is COMPLETELY socialist, we should be fine as long as there is at least one market for a trivial item.

If non exists, decision-makers are in the dark.

Yeah, right. How long have you been stuck in an ivory tower?

[Someone5]

I suspect that if a socialist commonwealth did ever come into being then in order for it to work at all they would end up having to implement some kind of quantitative measure of value, which is to say they would end up reinventing money and credit.

Yes, they would need to utilize econometrics tied to concrete reality; but that is not the same as reinventing money and credit. And, for that matter, let me point out that the fundamental issue socialists have with money and credit isn't the existence of either, it's the systems that are used to misallocate them.

[Nunt]

I mean, there is a basic issue at work here that the calculation problem cannot account for. How does Ford know how many spark plugs they need for their Fiestas being made in Mexico? I mean, literally, if the calculation problem is correct, then Ford's factory would have no capacity to actually figure out how many plugs were required.

I don't think you really understand the economic calculation problem. Its not about the difficulty of deciding how many car wheels Ford needs to build if it wants to produce 1 million cars. The economic calculation problem refers to the best way to produce those wheels. Do you use a lot of capital? A lot of labor? What kind of metal would be best?

Ford does not face the economic calculation problem because it is guided by prices. How to best produce cars? Well, maximize Revenues - Costs. In a command economy, there are no prices. So you can calculate if the value of your inputs is smaller than the value of your outputs.

[Someone5]

I don't think you really understand the economic calculation problem. Its not about the difficulty of deciding how many car wheels Ford needs to build if it wants to produce 1 million cars.

Actually, it is precisely the same problem, because fundamentally how many spark plugs they need is dependent on the number of cars they want to make. Libertarians try to make it about finished goods, but the same principle would logically apply to microeconomic transactions too. There is fundamentally no difference between Ford figuring out how many Fiestas its dealerships need and Ford figuring out how many spark plugs it needs to make Fiestas. If it can figure out one, it can also figure out the other. This is something that Austrians absolutely refused to approach.

Let me put it this way; why is it harder to figure out how many cars a dealership needs than it is to figure out how much rubber those tires require?

The economic calculation problem refers to the best way to produce those wheels. Do you use a lot of capital? A lot of labor? What kind of metal would be best?

None of those are determined based on market transactions; or, at least, not in any way dependent on a market that could not just as easily be determined through concrete resource figures. The market is no more useful than, say, Technocratic style Energy Accounting. The market in this case plays no role other than as a very imprecise and obtuse measurement of resource availability--which could be communicated directly in a far more meaningful way by suppliers. Price signals aren't even very useful signals. They don't break apart very easily--too many factors can influence prices to make them a meaningful method of communicating specifics.

Even if you want to say that having all of the various factors that go into pricing shoved together is useful, you can do that by creating a compound variable from more useful concrete data. And, in a world where we have computers and ubiquitous networks, it's entirely possible to communicate all of that data at the same time, in real time, without anything so cumbersome as price signals. Imagine, if you will, a stream of data that could be broken apart into demand figures and specific supply figures. You could still get the overall composite figure for cases where you do not need specificity, but you would also have all of those specifics available.

We live in a world where technology has made it feasible to replace price signals with more precise and useful measurements. Incidentally, that also makes the market obsolete, and solves the calculation problem. It's also what we're actually doing today, albeit without actually calling it that. No large business bases its decisions entirely on price anymore; they base their decisions on piles of econometric data where price plays only a relatively small part.

It's an obvious question to ask; why not just communicate econometric data directly, rather than cramming it together in imprecise prices? If firms did start sharing the econometric data sans price, why would a market be required? In a world where rational economic decisions can be made entirely without reference to price, why continue to have a market? What purpose does it serve, except as a way for the rich to exercise privilege and provide disproportionate resource allocation for themselves?

Mises never had to confront that question; because Mises was writing in a time before ubiquitous high speed data networks and computers. The calculation problem is fundamentally an obsolete hypothesis that references a world that has since revolutionized itself.

And yes, the calculation problem is a hypothetical logistical problem, meaning that it applies just as well to microeconomics as it does to macroeconomics.

Ford does not face the economic calculation problem because it is guided by prices. How to best produce cars? Well, maximize Revenues - Costs. In a command economy, there are no prices. So you can calculate if the value of your inputs is smaller than the value of your outputs.

A command economy simply sets other goals by which to gauge its efficiency. The most efficient method is the method which produces the most car for the least resources. You then strive to produce enough cars to meet the demands communicated by your distribution points. It's obvious enough, and entirely feasible with ubiquitous networking.

[JohannKaspurSchmidt]

If the means of production was collectivized instead of being privatized where it served the purposes of the public community that would be one more step closer in the abolition of monetary currency.

The type of service exchange I have in mind is that so long as people labor into the community they should be able to enjoy all it's services freely.

Of course such a concept is problematic where there are those who feel they are entitled more than others. I am trying to figure out a workable system but must admit it's in the beginning stages.

Ultimately I don't believe in taxation or debt based monetary systems.