Money, 8-tracks, Dodo Birds, and Beta-max

Author: Siân Killingsworth / 4 Mar 2017 / Personal Finance

In case you didn’t know, there is a looming retirement crisis in America.

The wealth inequality in this country is astronomical, and every week there is a new financial crisis. The Debt Ceiling, the Fiscal Cliff, the Sequester, and (spoiler alert) coming soon to a Congress near you, the Debt Ceiling: Part Deux.

So how do we fix the lumbering, patchwork operations of the monetary system?

Well, maybe we just quit using money altogether.

I know that is very idealistic, but it is a solution.

The problems of human wants/needs on this Earth are not driven by scarcity but rather distribution. Before the days of money, we lived directly off the land, sustaining ourselves. With the specialization of skills, a system of exchange naturally arose. In modern America, we are born into a society where money has become a necessity. We recognize that one cannot simply opt out of participation; in fact, leaving the monetary society ironically requires a great deal of money. But could we evolve beyond money, as we developed beyond hunting and gathering?

We could, with ease, power the entirety of humanity’s energy needs from geothermal sources or thorium plants. We grow enough food already to feed the world’s starving. We are on the edge of the graphene revolution which will literally change everything about our daily lives (even more so than computers), and technology is rapidly advancing to a point where robots can literally just do everything for us.

We just need to stop being greedy individuals and start actually working together as a society. We’re a world full of strangers…

3d printers can literally replicate themselves… 3d printers could print 3d printers that print robots that assemble robots that perform labor and produce goods, and meanwhile, humanity studies art and science and space. The need for money disappears in the abundance of food and material wealth.

Money only makes sense in the arena of scarcity and competition. “There isn’t enough for everyone so I have to make sure that my efforts and hard work are tallied and recorded so I will be appropriately rewarded for my hard work.” But what if there was enough of everything for everyone, why would you even need money?