Post by rareearth on Jun 15, 2011 0:21:39 GMT 10
Below follows something I posted somewhere else. Hopefully it is seminal work which will lead to even more wisdom or development.
Hi Casey.
The problem with the barter and gift economy is threefold: 1) You have to be face-to-face to barter effectively (if you are not face-to-face, then barter requires twice the postal expense as regular cash-for-products-and-services requires, and it still requires alien cash, so basically you cannot effectively barter unless you are face-to-face); 2) the gift economy requirements are similar to the barter requirements with the face-to-face thing; and 3) the gift economy requires "free lunches", which don't actually exist, unless you are still willing to exchange something for the free lunch (typically sex and companionship are exchanged, and that is the privilege of one gender only, but again, that is just barter in disguise, or barter with a lot of logical fallacies attached).
The problem with official (or fiat) currencies, is also threefold: 1) You most certainly have inflation; 2) through taxes you have even more inflation; and 3) governments behave like there is such a thing as a "free lunch", because they expect money with no intrinsic value (fiat money) to be valuable, and to also tax without giving the taxpayers anything substantially back.
That leaves electronic gold and/or silver standard backed (new/alternative) currencies as the only solution to the limits of the barter, and gift, and "Monopoly money" economy.
By the way, some minor taxes may still have to be paid even under the alternative backed currency scenario, because while the gold and/or silver standard largely maintains the intrinsic value of the currency into the future, some devaluation will still occur in order to cover the costs of the money printing, coining, and e-transactions (aka seigniorage).
As I said, there is truly no such thing as a "free lunch".
There can be a "cheaper lunch", and the cheaper lunch can even be nutritious (gold and/or silver standard), rather than based on junk food (fiat standard).
I'm still learning, but I hope all these metaphors make things easier to understand.
HMRD Cesidio Tallini
Hi Casey.
The problem with the barter and gift economy is threefold: 1) You have to be face-to-face to barter effectively (if you are not face-to-face, then barter requires twice the postal expense as regular cash-for-products-and-services requires, and it still requires alien cash, so basically you cannot effectively barter unless you are face-to-face); 2) the gift economy requirements are similar to the barter requirements with the face-to-face thing; and 3) the gift economy requires "free lunches", which don't actually exist, unless you are still willing to exchange something for the free lunch (typically sex and companionship are exchanged, and that is the privilege of one gender only, but again, that is just barter in disguise, or barter with a lot of logical fallacies attached).
The problem with official (or fiat) currencies, is also threefold: 1) You most certainly have inflation; 2) through taxes you have even more inflation; and 3) governments behave like there is such a thing as a "free lunch", because they expect money with no intrinsic value (fiat money) to be valuable, and to also tax without giving the taxpayers anything substantially back.
That leaves electronic gold and/or silver standard backed (new/alternative) currencies as the only solution to the limits of the barter, and gift, and "Monopoly money" economy.
By the way, some minor taxes may still have to be paid even under the alternative backed currency scenario, because while the gold and/or silver standard largely maintains the intrinsic value of the currency into the future, some devaluation will still occur in order to cover the costs of the money printing, coining, and e-transactions (aka seigniorage).
As I said, there is truly no such thing as a "free lunch".
There can be a "cheaper lunch", and the cheaper lunch can even be nutritious (gold and/or silver standard), rather than based on junk food (fiat standard).
I'm still learning, but I hope all these metaphors make things easier to understand.
HMRD Cesidio Tallini