Merged A Thread for AlexPontik to Explain his Ideas

xjx388 said:
Well, I didn’t say money was the be all end all of freedom. Like humanity itself, money is imperfect.
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When something does the opposite of what you designed it to do, it's not just 'imperfect' - it's fatally flawed.

You say that money is 'just a symbol for the basic human desire to be free'. If that is true then it's a pretty poor one, because for most people it represents the opposite. It's a symbol of 'freedom' the same way that the Hammer and Sickle is a symbol of freedom.

But the truth is, money was never intended to be a symbol of freedom. It was actually created to prevent freedom, by forcing people to pay for things rather just taking what they want (real freedom). That's not a bad thing mind you. It encourages cooperation and civility between strangers, and makes large scale economies and societies more practicable. The people in those societies may be less free than wandering hunter-gatherers, but the loss of freedom is more than balanced by other benefits.

The problem with money is that (as you say) humans have a 'basic desire to be free'. It's not their only desire, but it is at odds with the principle of money. When people lose sight of what money actually represents and equate it to 'freedom', the result is increased economic and social instability - which hurts both rich and poor.

There will always be a conflict between personal freedom and the common good. Maximize one and you cannot enjoy the other, and are poorer for it. But humans excel at finding a balance which provides more of both than what either can provide alone. Money helps us do that. It could do it even better if more people appreciated what it truly symbolizes.
 
dann said:
1) Money isn't really an invention.
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Yes, it is. It is just as much an invention as any other technology we have developed.

Money is the thing that prevents stomachs to be filled because the purpose of production in capitalism isn't to fulfill needs, it's to earn money.
4) The purpose of money is to ensure the enrichment of one class at the expense of the others. Money's usefulness is to one class only. Money is a relationship of a very particular kind. It's what separates the poor from the things they need.
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That is what money becomes when people abuse it, but that's not its purpose. In the same way that spears and knives were not invented to kill people, so money was not intended to make some people rich at the expense of others. And it certainly wasn't intended to prevent producers and consumers from doing business with each other.

The problem you are describing is real, but it is caused by Capitalism - not money. Capitalism is based on the principle that the more money you have the better off you are, and that therefore the amassing of capital is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. But that ignores the fact that doing so increases inequality, which damages the economy and makes everybody worse off - including the capitalists (they just can't see it because they don't value anything apart from money).

Unfortunately we (in the US) live in a society which extols Capitalism and denigrates other useful economic tools. This can largely be traced back to the early history of European colonization, when people came to America to make their fortune by simply taking stuff. This has given us the wrong-headed idea that Capitalism = freedom. It is so embedded in our psyche that today - even though the economic hazards of Capitalism are much better understood - we are still slaves to it.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
Yes, it is. It is just as much an invention as any other technology we have developed.

That is what money becomes when people abuse it, but that's not its purpose. In the same way that spears and knives were not invented to kill people, so money was not intended to make some people rich at the expense of others. And it certainly wasn't intended to prevent producers and consumers from doing business with each other.

The problem you are describing is real, but it is caused by Capitalism - not money. Capitalism is based on the principle that the more money you have the better off you are, and that therefore the amassing of capital is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. But that ignores the fact that doing so increases inequality, which damages the economy and makes everybody worse off - including the capitalists (they just can't see it because they don't value anything apart from money).

Unfortunately we (in the US) live in a society which extols Capitalism and denigrates other useful economic tools. This can largely be traced back to the early history of European colonization, when people came to America to make their fortune by simply taking stuff. This has given us the wrong-headed idea that Capitalism = freedom. It is so embedded in our psyche that today - even though the economic hazards of Capitalism are much better understood - we are still slaves to it.
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Good grief, stop blaming capitalism for the failings of the human race. Sure, capitalism allows some individuals to amass fortunes, but fortunes can be amassed under any system which allows private ownership of "property"(houses, land, items, money itself etc); after all money is just a means of allowing transfer of "property". If you really want to promote total equality you need to abolish private ownership of "property" because the innate greed of the human race will always lead to the desire to amass more of anything.
You have previously stated that you think greed is a learned characteristic. I disagree - greed and selfishness are the innate characteristics of the human animal and it is altruism which is learned - as an individual is taught and hopefully recognises that a degree of altruism helps the coherence of society. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - I don't believe the human animal is capable of learning and retaining the level of altruism that would allow the totally equal state of your choice.
 
bruto said:
But I would contend that even if money as an actual thing you can hold in your hand does not exist, some abstraction of value must exist for anything but local trade, and it must be possible to transmit that value without trading physical objects. There has to be some intermediate carrier of value, whether it's currency, credit, or just faith, or it would be so difficult and time consuming to achieve trades that it would become impracticable.

If Ogg the cave man has more meat than he needs and wants an axe, he might go to the guy who is good at making axes, and suggest a trade, which the axe maker might well accept because he's too busy making axes to hunt. If he doesn't need the meat, but knows the weaver needs some meat, and he needs a blanket, he might still take the meat, with another trade in mind.

But if I produce maple syrup in the woods of Vermont and need brake rotors for my Hyundai, it might be theoretically possible for me to swap my way across the world, and end up, after some research, with something the maker of brake rotors wants more than syrup - or I might find out that he knows a way to parley some syrup into something else, but even then, if a fellow from India wants them and gets there first with a simpler transaction, I'll lose the deal before I get there, and the quest for an object that would ordinarily cost me an hour of my time ends up costing a month and untold peripheral inconveniences and expenses, as I must carry enough swappable merchandise, or do enough labor, to support myself and my passage in the enterprise.

e.t.a. and of course I know that even that is an oversimplification since there isn't some guy in Korea or China making brake rotors in his back room.
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Agree with bruto on the above.
I will add that money doesn't have to refer to exchange of goods only, services are included as well (e.g. gym, hairdresser, delivery services etc.).

And within services, are also financial services, or investments.
There is a ridiculous amount of investment products but, in general, one is investing into something, if one allocates time and effort into making something that is worthwhile for this one and the others. Whether this something is worthwhile, will be judged in the end, so people trying to make from educated guesses, to simply playing with luck.

Economy means "careful management of available resources".
When investing doesn't work:When an investment doesn't work in the end, all the time and effort spend by the ones making the investment was wasted, so investments which don't work contribute negatively to the economy, as the time and effort spend could have been allocated to something else (new skills may are acquired by the investors through time due to their efforts, but they could have spend their time and effort more efficiently).
When investing works:Investments which work built up the economy in a society as they add up, up to the point where the economy "balances" (as the economists say), and after this point, even if the investments individually appear to be working, when added together, are overestimating the time and effort available from humans in society, until a breaking point where this starts becoming clear to the vast majority (and a recession historically follows).

Currency allows you to either enjoy the fruits of an investment in the past which works now(go to a good restaurant) with certainty, or allow you to invest yourself in the future with less certainty.

Currency and investments are different faces of money is how it looks to me (not excluding that I may be wrong so this thread), they both are aiming to reduce the time and effort needed to trade, for currency buy replacing bartering (which is fun only in computer games, and even there sometimes is a bit of a pain...) , for investments (when they work) by having people spend their time and effort for a worthwhile end, which others are willing to trade for currency.

What I am trying to write is a general definition for money.
Within "money reduces the time and effort spend to trade", are also contracts, as well as law.
Why? Because in a society where contracts and law exists, people use them and they don't need to spend any more time and effort to trade.
Where contracts and law don't exit, are not enforced, or are biased towards certain members of society, then people need to get creative and they need to spend time and effort to do that (with results varying from good fun to human atrocities, and all in between).
 
I'm not sure of where you are going with that wall of text but it appears that you have only focused on the "medium of exchange" aspect and whether it encourages "worthwhile" investments and discourages the other kind.

One negative aspect of money is that once people started realizing that money had value all on its own (regardless of whether the tokens represented a valuable commodity or not), it facilitated the idea of investing only in money. Of course, loans are an essential part of commerce but sheer speculation is also encouraged.

While it was just gamblers wagering with each other about money, it wasn't a problem but now the flurry of financial instruments and derivatives being traded around the world dwarfs any trade in goods and services and renders the global economy a house of cards. Far more energy is being expended in making money from money than in any other "worthwhile" investment.
 
psionl0 said:
I'm not sure of where you are going with that wall of text but it appears that you have only focused on the "medium of exchange" aspect and whether it encourages "worthwhile" investments and discourages the other kind.

One negative aspect of money is that once people started realizing that money had value all on its own (regardless of whether the tokens represented a valuable commodity or not), it facilitated the idea of investing only in money. Of course, loans are an essential part of commerce but sheer speculation is also encouraged.

While it was just gamblers wagering with each other about money, it wasn't a problem but now the flurry of financial instruments and derivatives being traded around the world dwarfs any trade in goods and services and renders the global economy a house of cards. Far more energy is being expended in making money from money than in any other "worthwhile" investment.
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In short my argument is that people who are good at making money, are good at exactly that (making money), and what they don't need is more money, as they are good at making money (or are they not and just got lucky and the rest of us are paying for their stupid lifes?).
In more detail:

Let's talk about investing only in money, but let's talk about the ones who invest in money and are good at it (according to them, and the people around them).
I will divide them into two categories, which may sound strange but follow me through the argument. I divide them to people who have fun and people who don't have fun. Also we will call them the "jokers" as they can come in endless variations.
The argument goes as follows:

The jokers
1. People who spend time and effort to trade, because it is fun to them, in the end… learn how to do this efficiently(= spend less time and effort to trade).
2. Because they become good in trading efficiently, they become good with money(= spend less time and effort to trade)!
3. Because being efficient in trading, which is what these people do, is what money’s end also is (Money reduces the time and effort needed to trade), Jokers are divided into funny Jokers and SAD JOKERS.
The GREAT DIVIDE : funny jokers and SAD JOKERS

Funny Jokers:
1. Funny Jokers, in the end… want to have fun, and becoming good in trading(=less time and effort spend), is their way of having fun.
2. Because their end is to have fun, when the fun Funny Jokers have, covers their needs, they don’t need to go further. But because they are becoming good in trading(=less time and effort spend), if they become more efficient in trading, than money in society is at the time, they end up with more money.
3. Since when this happens, Funny Jokers are more efficient in trading than money in society is at the time, keeping these money is useless to them, because they are more efficient at trading, than the money they hold. And, because more money doesn’t give them more fun at that point, Funny Jokers end up trading these money for nothing, plus put time and effort to do that, so that they are spend efficiently, because helping society does give them more fun!

Sad Jokers
1. Sad Jokers spend time and effort to trade, but they are not having fun. Because others spend time and effort to trade, plus have fun doing this , Sad Jokers need to become good at something else to make money. So they spend their time and effort on something else, on which they become efficient…
2. Because they become good at something else, their actions are not reducing the time and effort spend to trade, as… they spend their time and effort on something else. So, the money they make, is more efficient in reducing the time and effort spend on trading, than they are, and…the more money they make…the more time and effort needs to be spend on trading in society, and money in the end becomes inefficient for society…cause…
3. Because of this, what is no one’s problem in society…becomes everyone’s problem in society. Why? Because some Jokers are sad and this is funny. Why? Cause others aren’t and they are useful to society.

What the above means is that rich people are full of #!$%!!! , few may be capable, most simply got lucky (either by being born rich, or by risking theirs and other people's well-being).
Why am I saying such a horrible thing? Because if they are rich because of their skills then there is no reason to want their money to be safe, they can always make more money using their magical abilities.
 
AlexPontik said:
In short my argument is that people who are good at making money, are good at exactly that (making money), and what they don't need is more money, as they are good at making money (or are they not and just got lucky and the rest of us are paying for their stupid lifes?).
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Isn't that a bit like arguing a farmer doesn't need seeds as he's good at growing them?

Being good at making money doesn't usually mean spinning straw into gold. It usually means being good at turning money into more money. So if someone is genuinely talented at that then the basic thing they require is money.

I don't dispute your suggestion that a proportion of those who make a lot of money just get lucky, though I suspect the luck comes mostly early on in getting all the life opportunities necessary to be in a position to even try.
 
AlexPontik said:
What the above means is that rich people are full of #!$%!!! , few may be capable, most simply got lucky (either by being born rich, or by risking theirs and other people's well-being).
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I don't see the connection between that and the jokers.

In any case that seems to be an over generalization and seems to deny that somebody has the right to be (or get) rich.

As to what we can do about this giant casino we call the world, that is another matter altogether.
 
AlexPontik said:
In short my argument is that people who are good at making money, are good at exactly that (making money), and what they don't need is more money, as they are good at making money (or are they not and just got lucky and the rest of us are paying for their stupid lifes?).
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You are right, they don't need it - but they desire it. And then there are those who don't particularly desire more money than they need, but people give it to them anyway. The people who are best at 'making money' actually make other things - and the Capitalist system 'rewards' them with money.

Let's talk about investing only in money, but let's talk about the ones who invest in money and are good at it (according to them, and the people around them)...

People who spend time and effort to trade, because it is fun to them, in the end… learn how to do this efficiently(= spend less time and effort to trade).

Funny Jokers, in the end… want to have fun, and becoming good in trading(=less time and effort spend), is their way of having fun.

Sad Jokers spend time and effort to trade, but they are not having fun.
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Trading is just a job, and like all jobs some people get more 'fun' out of it than others. Trading is useful for setting the prices of stocks and commodities, but traders should realize that they are providing a service. Whether they have fun doing it is no more relevant than whether garbage collectors or doctors are having fun.

if they are rich because of their skills then there is no reason to want their money to be safe, they can always make more money using their magical abilities.
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Problem is the 'magic' isn't just their skills. A certain amount of luck is usually involved, but that doesn't mean they are 'just' lucky. Most fortunes are made by far more hard work than luck, and keeping it usually requires even more work. That is why capitalists often spend far more time and effort trying to increase their wealth than is healthy - because they are scared of losing it all to some fluke of bad luck.

The result that the richest are also the most paranoid - putting money above everything else and fighting anything that they perceive as threatening their wealth (even though it might actually benefit them). We shouldn't blame them for it though, the capitalist system selected them for that role.
 
Lplus said:
Good grief, stop blaming capitalism for the failings of the human race. Sure, capitalism allows some individuals to amass fortunes, but fortunes can be amassed under any system which allows private ownership of "property"(houses, land, items, money itself etc); after all money is just a means of allowing transfer of "property". If you really want to promote total equality you need to abolish private ownership of "property" because the innate greed of the human race will always lead to the desire to amass more of anything.
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I disagree. In primitive societies people tend not to be hoarders, they take only what they need and they share it with others.

You say that 'fortunes can be amassed under any system which allows private ownership of "property"' but that just describes various forms of capitalism. But when you say 'after all money is just a means of allowing transfer of "property"' I agree. As I said, money itself isn't the problem - capitalism is.

You have previously stated that you think greed is a learned characteristic. I disagree - greed and selfishness are the innate characteristics of the human animal and it is altruism which is learned - as an individual is taught and hopefully recognises that a degree of altruism helps the coherence of society. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - I don't believe the human animal is capable of learning and retaining the level of altruism that would allow the totally equal state of your choice.
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There is a difference between greed and 'selfishness'. Humans don't need to be taught altruism, it comes naturally when they interact with others. But like all traits, some have more of it than others. The promotion of greed over altruism, selfishness over empathy etc. selects for the 'desirable' traits and suppresses the others. This becomes institutionalized and even produces political divides, with large sections of society voting against their own interests due to being indoctrinated into the idea that 'greed is good'.

But how does this happen? In a capitalist system the people with the money have the power. They then perpetuate the system by selecting and training others to think the same as they do. The final masterstroke is to convince the general public that they too can - and should - aspire to be greedy capitalists.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
I disagree. In primitive societies people tend not to be hoarders, they take only what they need and they share it with others.
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Which is learned altruism
You say that 'fortunes can be amassed under any system which allows private ownership of "property"' but that just describes various forms of capitalism. But when you say 'after all money is just a means of allowing transfer of "property"' I agree. As I said, money itself isn't the problem - capitalism is.

There is a difference between greed and 'selfishness'.
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I disagree
Humans don't need to be taught altruism, it comes naturally when they interact with others.
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And that interaction teaches them altrusim. As I said it is learned.
But like all traits, some have more of it than others. The promotion of greed over altruism, selfishness over empathy etc. selects for the 'desirable' traits and suppresses the others. This becomes institutionalized and even produces political divides, with large sections of society voting against their own interests due to being indoctrinated into the idea that 'greed is good'.

But how does this happen? In a capitalist system the people with the money have the power. They then perpetuate the system by selecting and training others to think the same as they do. The final masterstroke is to convince the general public that they too can - and should - aspire to be greedy capitalists.
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No one trains people to want more - the difficulty is in training them to be altruistic and want less, so your whole explanation fails.

I assume that we are all animals to begin with and any "human" characteristics are learned. You seem to assume the exact opposite. I don't expect to change your mind and I can assure you that you won't change mine
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Isn't that a bit like arguing a farmer doesn't need seeds as he's good at growing them?
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when the farmer has enough seeds to plant his/her field then the farmer doesn't need more seeds.
when the farmer doesn't have enough seeds, then the farmer needs seeds.
Observation: farmers can generate their own seeds, if their crops are healthy, in time those who become good at farming will be able to do that if needed.

Regarding the ones good at making money
  1. For people who are good at making money, when the fun they have with money satisfies their needs, then they don't need more money (...because their needs are satisfied).
  2. They may still be making even more money, but the value of the money they make, does not give them more fun (or fulfillment if you prefer this word), but for those who are good at making money, their work does still give them more fun.
  3. What do they do with the extra money? Depends, some give some, some give a lot, some give nothing, society and what other people around them say affects this also.

Jack by the hedge said:
Being good at making money doesn't usually mean spinning straw into gold. It usually means being good at turning money into more money. So if someone is genuinely talented at that then the basic thing they require is money.
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In order for someone to turn money into more money, he/she will need to make something that is useful for other people, so that they have a reason to give him/her money.
Investing is moving money from one place in society to another, with the aim for the money to be moved where they would be spend efficiently (the least amount of money to make something people like).
When investing goes wrong and money move to a place where they are spend inefficiently, then:
  1. it was a mistake, you can't know what will happen next, so some investments fail. Whatever the consequences in society happen, this case cannot be avoided (but usually the consequences don't affect all of society)
  2. it was a hype, people got carried away, this can happen as well, without too many consequences for society.
  3. it was a disaster, that led to a recession of the economy for society, e.g. 2008 global recession (and the latter, is my argument with the jokers starts).


Jack by the hedge said:
I don't dispute your suggestion that a proportion of those who make a lot of money just get lucky, though I suspect the luck comes mostly early on in getting all the life opportunities necessary to be in a position to even try.
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It's not a matter of who got lucky which I am pointing, some do, what can we do about that? Not much is my view (and I don't see why we should also).
But not everyone gets lucky, some get there in a less lucky path, one that involves them making decisions about their actions. And those can also be split in two types of people:
  1. those who are fun regardless of whether they have money or not (without excluding that they can have their bad times).
  2. those who are fun, only if they have money, if they didn't have money , they wouldn't be fun for the rest people (and funny enough people around can spot those people).

For people who are only fun, if they have money, this is something that people close to them or spending enough time with them (family, friends, colleagues), can, should and probably will judge first.
My point is, if you have ever met or seen such people, if their family, friends and colleagues find them not fun once the money is out of the picture, imagine how not fun they should be to society through whatever means they use to make money.
You may ask, can't someone be mostly not fun but still good at his/her work? It is possible, but it becomes less and less likely, as the number of people one has to interact with in his/her work increases.
 
psionl0 said:
I don't see the connection between that and the jokers.
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People who made their money while being fun to society are funny jokers.
People who made their money in a way not fun for society, are sad jokers.
Their difference is that funny jokers, have so much fun in life, that they end up not caring about money, because they are good at making more money.
Sad jokers, on the other side, do care quite a bit about money, as well as keeping their money, as they are not good at making money.
Sad jokers are not good at making money, as they are not having fun while doing what they do. Other people do what sad jokers do, plus like it (have fun doing it), and end up becoming better at it compared to the sad jokers.
So the sad jokers need to find other ways to make money, and society pays the extra price.

psionl0 said:
In any case that seems to be an over generalization and seems to deny that somebody has the right to be (or get) rich.
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Not at all, someone has the right to be or get rich.
But I think you will agree, that if an individual in a society had 99,9% of the wealth in a society, we need a different word instead of rich, if we want someone to have the right to be or get rich, no?
Someone has the right to be or get rich, and this right, like all rights in society, is granted by society. So as long as society is not hurt by someone being or getting rich, I agree with what you write.
 
Lplus said:
No one trains people to want more - the difficulty is in training them to be altruistic and want less, so your whole explanation fails.

I assume that we are all animals to begin with and any "human" characteristics are learned. You seem to assume the exact opposite. I don't expect to change your mind and I can assure you that you won't change mine
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No one trains people to want more, and no one trains them to want less, if they end up still wanting more.

I assume also that we are animals, "human" characteristics are learned, but "animal" characteristics are learned as well.

What can't be learned is how to behave at each particular occasion, if another is behaving like an animal it becomes hard to behave like a human.
But you can try to keep it fun for all the participants, in a human way, this is what other animals do if they are social. (penguins keep it fun for penguins, in a penguin way)
 
I haven't read all the post but to me, money is a way to divide and conquer the population. For instance, when they were talking about a 15 dollar minimum wage many people offered up the argument that the kind of work a low skilled worker did did not support such a wage, now though it seems that wages for those low skilled jobs have gone up by themselves. Really I think the reason for wages being made low had more to to with keeping the lower classes down by making them focus more on survival so that they won't won't be so much of a threat and that there will also thus be more of a pronounced separation between the two groups.
 
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