The effect of income equality on societies...

[Kasz216]

mrstickball said:

Kasz216 said:

Also, I can think of a society that operates without money.

However FOR it to operate without money it would require either

A) People to stop wanting pretty much anything not related to needs.

B) Scarcity for non need objects to be eliminated by things like Star Trek Replicators.

In otherwords... your still working under the same system as outlined, without money. You are simply either decreasing demand or increasing supply to do it.

 

As for this being "Hypnotised by money". 

That's largely not the case as this system predates money.

You can find communes that attempt to work without money. They've existed in notariety for the past ~40 years in the US. They never work because, as you said, scarcity and differentiation among workers exist. The societies always break down because one person invariably works less often than the others and drags down the entire system, causing systemic failures inherant in such a system.

Well it's not coincidence that money is thought to roughly coincide with the creation of the city state.

Gift based economies work fine for small tribes (well assuming you don't hit a drought, game doesn't dry up, the winter isn't particularly harsh.)

However even once they interacted with each other they engaged in barter.     Some gift based societies still work, but only in small numbers when largely isolated from the outside.

Once you want to get a society nearing or past dunbar's number... you essentially NEED a system beyond gift giving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

And why if it wasn't for the fact that I think he's totally serious i'd think he was weaving some sort of elaborate satire.