All you have to do is get out of the Western European intellectual bias of individualism. If you look for individual decisions dictated by collective group decisions ( Durkheim ex-posited that and so did Jung) and look for historical evidence outside the individualist region (North America and Europe), you will find plenty. If you follow the economic theoretic paradigm, you will not find any evidence of any thing meaningful
It is challenging to imagine a society where everyone is self-sufficient because even the most talented would struggle to survive without specialization and trade.
From a historical or anthropological perspective, even hunting and gathering societies specialized to some extent.
I doubt it as our imperfect lives have always been in a jig-saw fashion. We mostly have some goods and services that others need while we would need goods and services from them. The transfer of value will always exist in our imperfect human systems.
All you have to do is get out of the Western European intellectual bias of individualism. If you look for individual decisions dictated by collective group decisions ( Durkheim ex-posited that and so did Jung) and look for historical evidence outside the individualist region (North America and Europe), you will find plenty. If you follow the economic theoretic paradigm, you will not find any evidence of any thing meaningful
I think that he term "society" implies collaboration in the group. Not a collection of independent survivors. Collaboration implies, I think without a doubt, that each individual provides a benefit to the group, in return for added value being offered by others in that group. There has to be a purpose for the group to hang together.
In the animal kingdom, I'd say barter is the only choice. Humans developed this much more flexible form of value transfer - money, or more generally, tokens.
There are in fact some primates in which the male, for the most part, lives independently, outside the group. The only "transfer of value" being mating, to keep the species alive. (I'd expect you have to be rather high in the food chain, to be able to make that work.)
Maybe, that could be found in a perfect society were all individuals are equal and can perfectly satisfy their needs individually. Maybe, that could be possible in heaven, but not on this planet earth.
It is the prevailing way of exchange,so we r adopting for survival in society.
It is so difficult for a society to live or exist without a way to transfer value. The way to transfer value is necessary for any society.
Let me create a new term: Ethical-Money, it represents back bone of existing good socities.
We are living in the modern era, so it may not possible.
I got a better definition of Society from Cambridge Dictionary. It reads "a large group of people who live together in an organized way, making decisions about how to do things and sharing the work that needs to be done."
Some element of the definition is
It says live together not fight each other.
It says in an organized way not in a disorganized way.
It says making decisions on how to do things not dictating for people.
It says sharing the work that needs to be done.
A Society without this 4 elements at the point of assessment is not yet a Society.
We will reach that mentioned stage of human exchange, but a next economic generation system requires a workable program, i.e. earth sharing economics, also envisioned in the Bible (like: Leviticus: chapter 25).
I also refer to Dutch theo-philosopher B.Spinoza and US Economist H. George. The eco-logical message of the 'Torah' is clear-cut and futuristic modelling is possible. The accounts of society will definitely change, but they will not change from alone. It is all about economic creativity.
It is not easy to find examples of societies based on barter. Examples of barter usually appear in exchange with people who do not belong to the same society (e.g. a European explorer looking for the origin of the Nile in the 19th Century, trying to get a canoe from a local tribe). Thus, before the appearance of money societies would have none of these systems.
A gatherer-hunter band would have means of allocating their loot in the similar way as how a meal is allocated among the members of a family, but it would not be allocation of value in the modern sense. I would suggest checking the anthropological economics literature.
Collective ownership of commodities as in traditional African Societies provides a treasure trove of examples where no EXCHANE is even tolerated. Where I grew up it was a shameful act to offer or receive quid pro quo. Please read Adam Smith “Theory of Moral Sentiments” for deep philosophical foundation of compassion. Finally, Where the Institution of private ownership is civilized out, no one exchanges much. A very liquid asset; Water in the Arab and sister African Desert, is collectively owned.
That's a recurrent object of much debate in the smoke-filled bistros of the left bank, where (mostly not gainfully employed) intellectuals put the world to rights and bemoan the existence of something as coarse as money in this imperfect world of ours.
In the real world though, without money the economy would swiftly collapse - because you absolutely need a way to share the fruits of your labor with your neighbor, and the other way around too, especially in an advanced economy where tasks have all become complex & highly specialized (filmmakers, surgeons, dentists, pilots, Chinese interpreters, what have you ... It is thanks to this narrow specialization of tasks that mankind is able to feed every day, more or less, its 7.6 billion members.)
Without such a means of exchange - the most practical and the fastest possible being currency - the farmers or those who would have means to both produce food and to defend themselves would thrive (at a level of civilization however that would have become unenviably rough, raw and coarse), whereas all the others would swiftly sink into non-viability....
To each his own. One can live with one's fears and obsessions or one could think about reality using plain direct verifiable information which is not filtered through fictional constructs. In the absence of the institution of private property explicit bilateral contracts do not exist. Cheers
The simple answer based on filtered information is definitely: no. The correct answer based on factual information which is not filtered through unverifiable fictional constructs is much more nuanced. Partition the commodity space into collectively usable goods ad services and purely privately usable. The greatest empire in the planet’s history, one that pulled humanity out the muck of the dark ages and the empire that currently commands the largest economy are good examples of collective ownership of large chunks of the commodity space. Rene Tom and adam Smith argue that, in the presence of direct interdependence, the individualist regime leads to a catastrophe. Please open your eyes and look around you.
Mohamed, you seem to be concentrating on private versus communal ownership. To me, that is an orthogonal argument. Even with communal ownership, the individuals of the group have to contribute. Otherwise, nothing ever gets put into that communal pot.
If communal living does not require money (tokens as proof of value added), then it is because it's a system of barter. I grow the vegetables that go into the public trough, you contribute dairy products, and Joe over there builds shelters for people. That's a barter system.
The other argument, private vs. communal ownership, relates to how best to place a relative value on contributions. With private ownership, it is more obvious what value members of the group place on each contribution of each of the other members. That's what makes it different. Without a central authority artifically placing value on individual contributions. There is no central authority to say how many shelters Joe has to build, to pick up that bag of vegetables.
I know that I am campaigning for a change of paradigm by individualist indoctrinated people. Only an angel who is not Cartesian is going to try it. So I can only appeal for understanding as in asking people to read a tract in a foreign language. I believe that individualism is an attribute which goes counter to successful societal evolutionary trajectories. Maybe we should just leave the question to neuro Societal MDs e.g. in Stanford and Berkeley medical schools. I claim that the test tube will resolve the issue. RCA Vector (his masters’ voice) will be forced to step aside as he did in cognitive psychology.
Maybe it is possible for people who live in very young society and who knew nothing but fragmentation of society would consider the fact that the tragedy of the commons won't be a tragedy if the commons was collectively managed.
Yes! If value is understood as material means. For example Sparta, laws of Lycurgus “Comparative biographies” of Plutarch
Yes and No, yes becuse when any given socity cherish thier values they would do everything to keep it.
No because the current trend of globalisation and ethnocentrism have made it more difficult especailly in places like Africa my land of birth.
In principal, animals do not use money and value transfer. Biologically we have a lot in common, so in principle - Yes.
However, we need to be self-sufficient on individual level. Division of labor would be then impossible, and total productivity will be lower. However, even primitive human societies knew the principle of altruism - to do some good for others for free.
With the development of our civilization the negative features like free riding and egoism also developed. Then value transfer became a necessary instrument to make accounting and more social justice.
Although humanity existed before anyone imagined money or any way to transfer value. It is certainly the societies development pushing us towards a world where the money or value transfer will not only no longer be important but its continued use will become increasingly necessary.
Small communities at low quality level of social and economic development did not use the exchange of values. Modern communities use the exchange of values, but this exchange does not take the form of money or the form of barter. Modern cancellation by values (goods) occurs in a form that is a higher form than money or barter.
I'm sorry, gentlemen, but this new higher form of exchange of values already exists and even dominates most of our planet. If you are interested in this scientific problem, we can discuss the joint work on it. My email: [email protected]
No, not possible. I am sorry gentleman we are progressing and searching for new methods of exchange instead of going back to barter system.
I'm not talking about a return to the barter form of goods cancellation. I am talking about the transition from a monetary type of exchange of goods to another higher than a monetary type of exchange, a more developed type of exchange of goods. This type of exchange of goods is a post-monetary type of exchange. In fact, you are looking for new tools and techniques for exchanging goods, rather than new methods for exchanging values. Your new "methods of exchange" will only be new elements of the post-monetary type of exchange of goods, which has dominated the world economy for more than 40 years.
Yes, few primitive societies still existing in Jungles away from modern societies without transfer of money or barter system.
The US dollar is the modern national post-money in the US and the international reserve post-money currency. Primitive tribes with a household without goods have nothing to do with the modern, higher form of commodity exchange.
Any items are valuable exactly as far as the participants in the exchange have agreed. Mankind, for example, can easily do without money, because it itself has given them value.
Discrepancies in the interpretation of the essence of price and value exist for more than 200 years. Differences in the interpretation degree of identity or degree of the difference between the price and the value of the commodities are also not less than 200 years. But the price, and value, and money, and post-money are objective economic phenomena. Therefore, inevitable destruction or degradation of the economic system occurs when the human (individual and social) psychology and human will intrude excessively invade this objective essence and natural socially significant functioning of these main elements of the commodity economy.
Mankind invented money ("gave them value") because it was forced to do this in order to facilitate own survival on a new qualitative level of civilizational development.
First, let's remember what an exchange is. Exchange is an interaction of the parties, from which all parties get more. than give. A good example of the exchange - a businessman invested money in the project and received a return on investment and profit. But exchange can be not only monetary (Polanyi, 2002). If interaction brings psychological satisfaction to the parties, then this too will be an exchange. For example, disinterested friendship. Modern society can not do without money exchange. It also uses non-monetary forms of exchange. For example, volunteering, charity, social work in helping older people.
The enterprise company is a collective based on monetary exchange. But there are no money transactions at the enterprise either. For example, the distribution of total costs by business unit.
The family can not exist without mutual satisfaction of the parties, and hence the exchange takes place here. At the heart of the family is not monetary exchange, but an exchange that has the character of mutual physiological, psychological and material satisfaction. The wife does not require money from her husband when she cooked him breakfast. There is a point of view that the basis of the family is the wife's consent to sex in exchange for an income received by the spouse (Wang, 2004). There is also the view that the basis of the family is the family benefits from the joint economy (Becker, 1981). Intergenerational exchange is noticeable in the family. One can argue which form of exchange is more important for the family. One can argue which form of exchange is more important for the family. However, we are sure that exchanges form the basis of the family (Naydenov, 3).
On the surface, taxes are transferable money. However, in essence, taxes are not a monetary form of exchange, since the state does not sell its resources, but provides indivisible public services in exchange for taxes. Undoubtedly, no matter how large the losses from opportunism might be in the sphere of exchange, "taxes-public goods and services", on the whole, this exchange is beneficial to citizens. In the field of tax administration, money is a thing (an artifact) as an intermediary of exchange.
The theory of social exchange has another aspect of the application - an assessment of the potential of nuclear deterrence. In a geopolitical context, the potentials of mutual destruction of warring parties are compared and, if the potentials guarantee mutual destruction, then each side avoids a military nuclear attack.
The theory of social exchange found its theoretical justification in the concept of contract theory the most completely. (Holmctröm,1982). (Naydenov, Novokshonova, 2018)
1. Polanyi K. The Great Transformation: Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. M., Aleteyya, 2002.-312p.
https://www.libfox.ru/369666-karl-polani-velikaya-transformatsiya-politicheskie-i-ekonomicheskie-istoki-nashego-vremeni.html
2. Naydenov N.D. Novokshonova E.N. Mathematical Exchange Theory // Economic Enlightenment. 2018. No. 4 (4). URL: economic-education.ru
3. Naydenov N.D. The family as an institution of exchange. In the book .: Healthy Family - Healthy Russia. Materials of the I International Scientific and Practical Conference (November 16, 2013, Nizhny Tagil). - Nizhny Tagil: TTI (branch) UrFU, 2013.-P.54-57
3. Becker G. A Treatise on the Family.Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press.1981.-304p.
4.Wang E. Social Exchange Theory Applied to Romantic Relationships. 2004.November 6.-9p.URL: http://web.mit.edu/wangfire/pub9.00/essay3.pdf
Сначала вспомним, что такое обмен. Обмен — это взаимодействие сторон, от которого все стороны получают больше. чем отдают. Хороший пример обмена - бизнесмен вложил деньги в проект и получил возврат вложенных средств и прибыль. Но обмен может быть не только денежный (Поланьи.2002).
Если взаимодействие приносит психологическое удовлетворение для сторон, то это тоже будет обменом. Например, бескорыстная дружба. Современное общество не может обойтись только денежным обменом. Оно использует и не денежные формы обмена. Например, волонтерство, благотворительность, социальная работа при оказании помощи пожилым людям.
Предприятие это коллектив. основанный на денежном обмене. Но и на предприятии существуют не денежные трансакции. Например., разнесение общих издержек по подразделениям.
Семья не может существовать без взаимного удовлетворения сторон, а значит обмен здесь имеет место. Но в основе семьи не денежный обмен. а обмен, который носит характер взаимного физиологического, психологического удовлетворения и вещного удовлетворения. Супруга не требует денег от супруга, когда она приготовила ему завтрак.
Есть точка зрения, что в основе семьи лежит согласие жены на секс в обмен на доход семьи, получаемый супругом (Wang,2004). Есть также точка зрения, что в основе семьи – выгоды супругов от ведения совместной экономики (Беккер,1981). В семье заметен межпоколенческий обмен. Можно спорить, какая форма обмена более важна для семьи. Но обмены образуют основу семьи. (Найденов, 3).
Обратимся к налоговому обмену. На поверхности, налоги- это переуступаемые деньги. Однако, по существу, налоги – это не денежная форма обмена, поскольку государство не продает свои ресурсы, а предоставляет неделимые общественные услуги в обмен на налоги. Несомненно, какие бы большие потери от оппортунизма ни имели бы места сфере обмена «налоги – общественные товары и услуги», в целом, этот обмен выгоден гражданам. В сфере администрирования налогов деньги - это вещь (артефакт) как посредник обмена.
Теория социального обмена имеет еще один аспект применения - оценка потенциала ядерного сдерживания. Сравниваются в геополитическом контексте потенциалы взаимного уничтожения враждующих сторон и, если потенциалы гарантируют взаимное уничтожение, то каждая из сторон избегает ядерного нападения.
Наиболее полно теория социального обмена нашла свое теоретическое обоснование в концепции теории контрактов (Holmctröm,1982). Теория контрактов снимает противоположность рыночных и нерыночных форм обмена. The theory of contracts removes the opposite of market and non-market forms of exchange. (Найденов, Новокшонова, 2018)
ЛИТЕРАТУРА
1.Поланьи К. Великая трансформация: политические и экономические истоки нашего времени. М., Алетейя, 2002.-312с.
https://www.libfox.ru/369666-karl-polani-velikaya-transformatsiya-politicheskie-i-ekonomicheskie-istoki-nashego-vremeni.html
2.Найденов Н.Д.. Новокшонова Е.Н. Математические теории обмена //Экономическое просвещение. 2018. № 4 (4). URL: economic-education.ru
3.Найденов Н.Д. Семья как институт обмена. В кн.: Здоровая семья – Здоровая Россия. Материалы I Международной научно-практической конференции (16 ноября 2013г, Нижний Тагил). – Нижний Тагил: ТТИ (филиал) УрФУ, 2013. –С.54-57
3.Becker G. A Treatise on the Family.Сambridge; London: Harvard University Press.1981.-304p.
4.Holmctröm B. Moral Hazard in Teams/The Bell Journal of Economics,Vol.13,No. 2. (autumn,1982), pp.324-340
5.Wang E. Social Exchange Theory Applied to Romantic Relationships. 2004.November 6.-9p.URL: http://web.mit.edu/wangfire/pub9.00/essay3.pdf
A medium of exchange that is accountable as per growth of that exchange is the most viable solution.
Alexander Franco! Your thought is moving in the right direction. Tell us, what is this medium of exchange, in your opinion? Is it a commodity or a non-commodity nature? If it is a commodity, then what kind of a commodity is this medium of exchange? Thankful in advance for your answers to my questions.
The market for intelligent products is the Internet. Here, only digital assets are sold and bought. Plus, advertising campaigns are conducted on the Internet and real goods are sold. There is also a special currency - bitcoin, which also has an exclusively digital format and is a digital asset. On the Internet, exchanged values exist only as a digital asset. We can assume that real money, paper money and money as digital assets are linked, but there is no research on this issue. Whatever the idea of exchange, once the market phenomenon is one-sided and narrow, the Internet is proof of this.
The Internet is not a market for intelligent products. The Internet is a specific part of the information space of modern civilization. Only part of the Internet is a space for buying and selling goods. The other part of the Internet is a space for the non-commodity exchange of material and non-material goods. Bitcoin and other virtual "currencies" are not currencies. They are not new money or post-money. They are kind of speculative goods that have no chance of becoming commodity equivalents. I repeat once again: money does not exist in the modern commodity economy.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree "On the development of the digital economy", which will operate until 2049,
The full text of the legal act is not yet available to the general public, but we can already assume that this project has become a revolution in the virtual sphere. Henceforth, the concepts of "mining", "block", "smart contract", "token" are introduced in the legal field. Tax privileges for the extraction and exchange of digital currency have also been introduced.
Source: https://www.if24.ru/belorussiya-legalizovala-kriptovalyuty/
The corresponding draft law on digital assets also exists in the Russian Federation
I partly agree with the modern money criticism of @Titsky. Bitcoin has three problems: a) there is no fundamental value behind it (well, there is also none for dollar after separation from the gold standard, but people believe in it, since there is no more stable currency today), b) there is transaction cost (energy spent by computer to find new code), c) impossibility to restore if you forget code (there is already substantial loss).
By the way, I also have a new question. It is not about money, but about lack of transparency leading to higher complexity of rational choice in modern world; it is also important for consumers. See https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_about_the_role_of_transparency_in_economic_contracts_with_consumers
Still, I insist that the Internet is a market for digital assets. For example, the copywriter writes articles on order for the Internet and for sales in Internet trading. The copywriter sends his article via the Internet and receives money for it via the Internet in electronic format. If the copywriter bought online advertising for electronic money received, then we are dealing with a circulation of values on the Internet, which exists autonomously from real commodity turnover.
The lack of Internet circulation of values and digital assets is not that this appeal is tied to the real turnover of goods and gold, but that scammers operate on the Internet, playing on the psychological characteristics of the population. Internet scammers work professionally. They monetize psychology through the Internet. This is done, for example, in multi-level marketing.
I want to say about testing texts for uniqueness. Adapting the originally written text to the indicated percentages for uniqueness leads to meaningless uniqueness, loud and empty phrases and words.
The low level of security on the Internet makes it a risky tool for exchanging intellectual resources.
The shortcomings of Internet circulation of intellectual resources on the Internet do not stop its development.
I understand that your question is about whether a society can exist without transferring material exchanges, such as money for food, or bartering system without the use of cash. I think in the primitive societies, such as those of the hunters and gathers, they did not have money. One tribe may exist for a very long time without encountering another tribe so there is no possibility of exchange. So yes a society can exist without material exchanges with other societies. Besides, in the primitive tribe everything is already shared so there is no need for exchange. But when societies encounter one another on a regular basis then there arises the need or the perception of benefits of exchanging things, hence the bartering system and then the money system.
If you are at the airport, then you pass by children, men, women, old people. They are the main social groups, on which all activities of market structures are oriented. The market really surrounds the main social groups: children, women, men and the elderly. However, it would be erroneous to believe that interaction between them takes place as a market exchange. The interaction of the main social groups (children, men, women and elderly) goes far beyond consumption. Here there is a distribution of both material goods and money, but it goes far beyond the limits of market exchange or its continuation. To believe that exchange takes place only in primitive societies is a delusion. When a woman prepares dinner for her husband, she does not require her husband every time money for the production of dinner. I must admit that we know very little about the exchange between the main social groups. We know a lot about the exchange between rich and poor, we do not know anything at all about the intergenerational exchange of people, the connection between culture and economy. These issues are important for solving practical problems, for example, in pensions and in strengthening the family. In the family, there is uncertainty. that either the man is the holder of money, or the woman. What is the real practice of distributing the function of the money holder between the husband and wife in the family? Clearly, this practice is not of a market nature, although this is precisely money as a market phenomenon. What plays the main role here: either rational economic considerations, or psychological aspects of co-production and distribution, or cultural traditions of husband and wife? These are issues of exchange on a non-market basis in a modern information and urbanized society.
My answer is a cautious yes but that is because I think that your are asking about money, barter and equivalent value exchange systems. I am definite that it is possible for society to exist without that form of exchange. However, no society can exist without interaction, sharing and transfer of value even when this is not mediated by money or its equivalent. value can be shared without attaching strict measuring and a sense of reciprocal payment. All individuals in a society cannot be self sufficient and life and society are about networks, interconnection and mutual dependence. This may be without our current mode and means of exchange of value.
Can society exist without exchange? Can society replace networks and mutual dependence? I think this is an interesting statement of the problem of exchange in society.
The network is built in such a way that there are no unilateral flows of values. Therefore, there must be proportionality between the elements within the network. In the network of "children-women-men-old men" proportionality is maintained either by hedonism, or by a historical tradition, if we exclude the market, or by a social contract. Hedonism opposes the historical tradition. The social contract integrates both hedonism, the historical tradition, and the market regime.
The assumption that there is no exchange in social networks is refuted by the stability of its elements and by the fact that each element of the network consumes resources, receives reimbursement and thereby is built into the network.
Western society is now experiencing a demographic decline, the number of births does not cover the number of deaths. The proportion between the born and the dead begins to determine the proportion of subsidies between large families and small families. Proportion "More children in the family-More family reimbursement" is associated with the essence of the exchange-the receipt of mutual benefits from interaction.
In medicine, there is such a phenomenon as the sorting of patients. First, doctors serve patients who are more likely to survive, secondarily doctors serve patients who are less likely to survive. The exchange of doctors' costs of treatment and the number of survivors is evident.
In these examples of exchange, market exchange is built into the system of social exchange.
I agree with the statement: Have to have system of exchange of some kind.
I absolutely believe this is possible in a socialist society.
Dear Ademolawa Michael Adedipe, you are wrong.
Marxists believe that private ownership and market exchange are the cause of exploitation of workers. However, there are orthodox Marxists-defenders of the interests of the working class. They deny the existence of any exchange in a just society.
In contrast to Marxists, liberals consider market exchange to be the most effective form of exchange in modern society.
We believe that different forms of exchange exist simultaneously in any society. Therefore, in the Venetian Republic, the wealth of which was based on trade, there were non-market forms of exchange, such as building and using public tasks and facilities (buildings of republican institutions, public buildings, bridges, etc.).
Undoubtedly, in the USSR the main form of exchange was a centralized exchange. Its following forms are clearly distinguished: budget, sectoral exchange at the national level, sectoral exchange at the regional level, exchange in public organizations. Preserved and market forms of exchange (insurance, collective-farm markets, state trade, banks, cooperative trade).
Those who defend non-market forms of exchange are not always Socialists and Communists. For example, religious organizations build their activities on a non-market basis. In modern society, there are various forms of exchange. In this diversity the advantage of modern industrial society.
Hello Nikolai,
I was not referring to orthodox Marxists. Despite the fact that your response was well-crafted, it is not broad enough. Temporal experimentation of some ancient and modern societies are lacking. The utopian idea of a complete socialist state is neglected. Some primitive societies had self-sufficient individuals where survival is based on how strong you are.
Don‘t ever rule out a unified government of the world in the future where money and barter would be useless. The signs are everywhere. If this idea is absolutely impossible and completely non-existent in the past, the poster would not have asked the question on here.
When it comes to social and political theories, there is no right or wrong answer. We can only have an intellectual debate, resist a theory, modify it, and create a new one. Et voila, everything becomes new!
Thanks for the detailed answer. You are a true follower of J. Baudrillard's theory of symbolic exchange. I never thought that Baudrillard has followers. The theory of symbolic exchange is very difficult to explain. But you managed to do it easily and simply.
I am sending an article about the current market of bus transportations of passengers at the municipal level. This article shows that today the market is not two, but three subjects - the organizer, operator, owner.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology