[Castout]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

This is an interesting topic, and I'm glad to see it. I'm curious, though, as to why you chose to start it with an argumentative and defensive attitude. Claiming that you will be called names and derided seems to me to be begging for a fight. That said...

It's your perception that tells you I'm being defensive. I was merely stating an opinion that I was likely to be thought of as a fool and were crazy.
The reason being we are really the products of our age and money is a big part of our second industrial revolution. So, expectedly, most people will defend money.
But I will only be derided as a fool and being crazy or a communist ONLY if the idea has begun to gain a traction or a foothold in society. In the absence of traction, the idea will simply be ignored.

If you really observe the world today, most of our problems can be attributed to money, directly and indirectly. Money makes us discriminate people. It takes away power from many groups of people and hands it to a few small groups of other people. Democracies are failing because money takes over genuine concern for people's interests.

For economical reason (money), we justify polluting our world to the brink of our own extinction with climate change. Even money works against the effort of mitigating our folly in ruining our planet, one which we can't escape from, yet.

Today, just 6 persons own half of the world's entire wealth. 62 persons probably own as much as 80-90% of the world's entire wealth (money).
This means our world is pandering to just so few people. The rest of us have been made irrelevant and are forced to scrape a living off the marginal 5-10% of the world's wealth. This is the perfect recipe for enslavement in one form or another, for injustice, persecution, and oppression.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Is it the primary problem? Does it have to go? I don't have an answer to that, but the first question that comes to my mind is "How?" How did money come about in the first place? Skybird's link offers a good explanation. It seems to me that we have money as a common means of exchange because the old system of barter only works on a small, local level. If I can only produce one thing, and no-one wants that one thing, how am I to survive?

We did small barters only because we didn't have the technological capacity for mass production. It had nothing to do with money.
A moneyless society is termed a resource-based society that would enable us to produce what we CAN produce instead of what is affordable.
There can be no hunger in such a world because foods will be produced according to the needs of all people instead of affordability or prices. Foods would also be produced in the highest level of quality now that cost is out of the picture.
We would be able to mine deep sea on a massive scale now that cost is out of the picture, according to our need since we wouldn't need to destroy the planet just to hoard money. Likewise with mining the moon on a massive scale, even other planets. There isn't even enough money in the entire world to mine our moon on a massive scale. Even if we had we would still not do it on a massive scale since the profit and cost consideration would not appeal to entrepreneurs even when there's demand for it. People would still form enterprises but out of a common passion and purpose rather than chasing after profits. It would be a world based on value and purpose rather than profit.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Maybe. Maybe not. When you word it that way it sounds like more defensiveness, rather than an honest argument. It also sounds like a sales pitch. Note that the term "sales pitch" doesn't necessarily mean "selling something for money". It also means selling ideas, such as religious or political.

It sounds like a sales pitch to you because it appeals to you. I'm merely stating an idea which I believe will work and will work for the betterment of us all by us dreaming a better dream than this nightmare somewhat of being controlled by money (or moneyed groups/people).

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

People need things. People have things. If you have something I want, how do I get it (not yours, but one of my own)? Is everyone to produce whatever they can for no reason? Whether it's greed, lust, or an honest desire to have stuff, whether it's cool stuff or just the basic essentials needed to survive. how exactly do we get that stuff?

Obviously, there needs to be a council to allocate resources according to our needs as a collective species but even those in the council don't get paid anything.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

A nice idea, but how do you propose to make it happen? What would you change?

Mainly through the above but in such a system, everything is free including us (our work). In the absence of toiling for money, with time, men grow ambitious and can focus on improving himself according to his passion and on improving his environment and society, all without for money.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Possibly. I'm still curious as to how.

The technical details need to be worked on but it's basically producing what WE CAN produce according to our needs without the need to destroy the planet just to accumulate money for influence and power (thus, security)