Quote:
Originally Posted by August
I'd venture to say that the technology for mass production, indeed the whole industrial revolution itself would have never existed without money. There is just no way to gather the many resources, equipment and trained personnel required by any factory by barter alone. Therefore human society without money is limited to small agrarian and hunter gatherer groups where life is both difficult and short.
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And people have no rights under rigid authoritarian rule. Looking at American indian tribes before the white man came there were two things that dominated.
First was a destructive slash and burn agriculture. Wonder why we find those cliff dwellings out west with the houses all just abandoned in perfect shape? It's because moneyless societies take from the earth, they give nothing back. These tribes would set up their fields close to the Pueblo until they destroyed the ability of the dirt to raise crops. Then they'd abandon that tract and set up another further away. This went on until the crops were half a day from the city. Then the city was abandoned, the land for 30 miles ruined forever, even to this day. Much of the western desert was made by destructive moneyless societies who of course did not value the land.
Second was a warrior cult, where tribes warred with each other out of hundreds of years of tradition, raiding and killing their enemy tribes to take women and children, food and scalps. War was an everyday good part of life to the American indian, the worthiest man was the man who had killed the most other men in his lifetime. Of course this was not true with every single tribe, but was prevalent. It was very difficult to be a peaceful tribe when the others were looking to kill you.
We have erected fanciful stories of the "noble savage" and sought to emulate their body mutilations and other aspects of tribal life. Now I guess the new craze is the longing for a moneyless society. Stone age society has nothing we would wish for. Only stone age societies are moneyless.
Star Trek and other visions of future moneyless societies are nothing but delusions of madmen. I am richer than the greatest Roman Emperor. I have better food. I have running water in my house without lead poisoning. I live in a nation of laws, not the capricious whim of powerful men who are beyond the law. I can travel two thousand miles just by deciding to do so, and can support myself when I get there. My life expectancy is greater than 25 years. I will not be killed by a tribe that lives 30 miles away just because I am of my tribe. I can type this on a computer that I designed and built because money makes this possible.
The necessary result of no money is a hunter-gatherer society with no health care, no dependable food supply, no refrigeration, no heat, depending on raping the earth because they produce nothing. Show me a single exception.