What Happens When We No Longer Need Money

We can need a thing or not. If we have everything we need before we need money, we will no longer need money. But until that time we will still need money.

It doesn't matter how much technology and resources you have, there are still matters of taste to sort out. Should the sky be pink today, or inky blue with yellow stripes? Well, that depends on who bids the most ...

Really?

If I have everything I need, that will likely include a place where I can exercise my own tastes. If it comes down to changing the color of the sky in that society, would it not be a bidding war of getting people's attention to your side vs Bob's? Now, if we want to call that attention span 'Money', then it's not the same money that I keep in the bank, and in all likelihood, not the type that we need to get everything else that we need.

The actual colour of the sky is irrelevant if everyone can set their own sky-colour-value internally...

Many people are naturally wired to crave more, be it more power, more popularity, etc. Being that resources will probably always be limited (even if enough to live comfortably), such personalities will want to have more at the expense of those less interested in such a battle. Thus, people will probably always be fighting over resources unless we remove our Darwinian competitive nature from the human race. However, if we do that, some other beings may end up taking advantage of us. On a large scale, Darwinian greed always wins. -- top

My theory on that is that these people are generally using ineffective strategies to meet needs. Someone who never has enough power is probably just trying to satisfy the very real need to be accepted by fellow humans. Except that power doesn't actually satisfy this need except perhaps superficially. I could draw a systems diagram (ShiftingTheBurden) showing that spiralling out of control.

See the musings of the economist ManfredMaxNeef? (sp?). They are very unique and entertaining if nothing else.

-- JasonFelice

Money is just a measure of economic force. Whether you use kilowatts, degrees or dollars, there will always be action in the system and a unit for measuring it.

There is a somewhat interesting story "Manna" that explores this. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Money is how you get other people to do things. When we have every thing we need, we will still want services.

''No, coercing others in that manner is called bribery. Money is merely a useful resource for this act.

If all things are done by non-humans (robots?) then money is not needed for services, either. Of course, money is also a way of distributing limited resources and some resources will always be limited no matter how we advance. If most resources become practically limitless, however, money might be obsolete. Any remaining limited resources could be non-transferably rationed instead.