urbanistosThu, Feb 11, 2010 In the pursuit of lofty ideals we must sometimes ignore constraints that we know we cannot truly avoid; money is one such constraint. I dare to propose to you that money is not the problem, but that greed and a big misapprehension of the link between wealth and happiness might be.
At any rate, before you ask how we might go about moving beyond money as a means of resource exchange, perhaps it is important to wonder if this is even possible? What conditions would remove money from the global cultural equation? I suspect that this would only occur as a result of a catastrophic social collapse that would see the end of a globally linked community. No more air travel, no more internet, no more knowing what is happening on the other side of the world. At the very least, human civilisation in the early 21st century wouldn't abandon money without radical and profound changes to the conditions of our lives - and to suppose that those changes would be wholly positive, or not alter the situation beyond recognition seems wishful at best. To assume that the continuity of this information structure - the internet - through such change is unsupportable.
I like the idea of a world founded on a different economic paradigm; however, I am skeptical that any means other than total catastrophe could lead to such a changed situation.
In the pursuit of lofty ideals we must sometimes ignore constraints that we know we cannot truly avoid; money is one such constraint. I dare to propose to you that money is not the problem, but that greed and a big misapprehension of the link between wealth and happiness might be.
At any rate, before you ask how we might go about moving beyond money as a means of resource exchange, perhaps it is important to wonder if this is even possible? What conditions would remove money from the global cultural equation? I suspect that this would only occur as a result of a catastrophic social collapse that would see the end of a globally linked community. No more air travel, no more internet, no more knowing what is happening on the other side of the world. At the very least, human civilisation in the early 21st century wouldn't abandon money without radical and profound changes to the conditions of our lives - and to suppose that those changes would be wholly positive, or not alter the situation beyond recognition seems wishful at best. To assume that the continuity of this information structure - the internet - through such change is unsupportable.
I like the idea of a world founded on a different economic paradigm; however, I am skeptical that any means other than total catastrophe could lead to such a changed situation.