How a cashless society will work.. the basics, and why we would want it.

At first I thought this subject would fit perfect among the social issues but then came to the bright insight it is what we probably all would see happen during a new world order. The coming ...or the next. It is also interesting to discus why we would like to have a moneyless society. Would it end poverty and crimes for instance.


Anyways, the title says it all... and I have no idea.

First it is important to know what money actual is... Wikipedia says..

Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a particular country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment. Any item or verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered as money.

Tried to give a thought tho, how a moneyless world would function but again and again came back to the needs of man and his willingnes to trade something for something. Which ends up with an accepted easy to pocket currency we all like to have enough of....and then I am back at square one. As if it is a law of nature, something universal which occurs throughout the universe. Money, a natural evolving part of a society.

I think that a moneyless society can only work if there has been a radical change in the way we think about possession, status and power of the individual. Mankind as it is, with his greedy selfsatisfying ego is not ready for such a world. If I am correct the universum of Star Trek is moneyless. Maybe an ardent trekkie can enlight us how this world works.

Have you ever gave it a thought...?

a reply to: zatara

Funnily enough, I have.

Utopian future will not work

My conclusion is it won’t work due to a lack of motivation.

Motivation is what rules most people today. It's what rules most companies and governments too. Motivation is used to gain money and/or rewards.

Think about it this way.

If there's no currency/reward, who would do the "lower" jobs such as cleaning? Robots? Who will build the design, build and maintain said robots with no currency/reward? With no currency/reward, there is no motivation.

Look at it from a sci-if angle. Star Trek.

Everyone gets everything. Free food, accommodation, TV (or equivalent), health care and so on. People need for none of the basics or luxuries. Where's the motivation to do anything? There isn't any.

a reply to: zatara

Money, in all of its various forms throughout human history (from salt to shells to feathers to gold to decimal points in a bank) is just a way to store and trade labor.

If you cannot do that, then you will never have a civilization.

It isn't about greed at all.

It's about the reality that if you do not have a method to store and trade labor, then you can't actually do anything as a society besides taking care of one's own home. You can't even really do that if you have no way to trade with your neighbor.

Unless you want to keep track of what neighbor owes you a favor and what neighbor you owe.

Oh wait... we are back to money.

a reply to: zatara

Star Trek works because they have a machine that replicates matter, so you can go to it and basically have it make whatever you want. This more or less renders most things valueless, so there is no need to work to earn or produce. Everything is made at the punch of a button, with zero effort.

There are a few things that cannot be replicated and those things are highly sought and have extreme value. Basically, they're still treated much like things are today - traded, bought and sold, collected, fought over.

And even for things that can be replicated, if you decide to work to produce those things with your own labor, the versions you create have value above replicated versions for their artisan nature and people recognize the value of the labor you put into them in crafting them.

Since no one is making a matter replicater anytime soon. Simply rendering the economy cashless won't usher in Utopia. It will basically reduce us back to a barter economy like we had prior to cash.

We've already started the transition. I hardly ever see any actual money in my wallet, it is mostly numbers on a computer screen and a debit card.

But a completely cashless society brings up some interesting thoughts. What do we think those who control the numbers would do? They'll probably just put as many zeros behind that first number as they want. I'm sure they're already doing it, giving them Christ endless money to bribe people with.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: zatara

Star Trek works because they have a machine that replicates matter, so you can go to it and basically have it make whatever you want. This more or less renders most things valueless, so there is no need to work to earn or produce. Everything is made at the punch of a button, with zero effort.

There are a few things that cannot be replicated and those things are highly sought and have extreme value. Basically, they're still treated much like things are today - traded, bought and sold, collected, fought over.

And even for things that can be replicated, if you decide to work to produce those things with your own labor, the versions you create have value above replicated versions for their artisan nature and people recognize the value of the labor you put into them in crafting them.

Since no one is making a matter replicater anytime soon. Simply rendering the economy cashless won't usher in Utopia. It will basically reduce us back to a barter economy like we had prior to cash.

Plus, if I remember right, at least in Voyager, the crew was sort of 'paid' and sometimes punished with replicator rations. I think they justified.it as something to do with not having guaranteed access to fuel but the replicators were shown not to be exactly magic giving boxes and there was still an incentive to work in exchange for the ability to have things from the replicator.

Also the farengi, or whatever, they used money. I also remember money and currency coming up in deep space 9 a bunch, but it's been a long time so I don't really remember the details.

As to the op. Until we have a way to make time and resources meaningless, there will always be something to trade for something.

I always liked Michael Moorcock's take on a decadent, futuristic society where money, time and effort are meaningless. I feel like it's probably a lot closer than star trek to what it would be like. I also figure star trek really glosses over the major holodeck and drug abuse problems that would exist in star Trek's universe.

Nat geo did a kind of extreme short movie about what happens when the power goes out.
Then you cant pay for gas, cant buy water, cant buy food...

Till such a time as we have a strong dependable energy grid, the possibility of a true cashless society should be dead in the water.

Also... yea the replicator is kind of important.

Biggest one is You won't have to go through the cushions of every sat You own looking for ashtray change... Sign Me up!

a reply to: ketsuko

If you have a basic barter system, there is going to come a point where you have people with things that you don't want that owe you something.

So to fix that (as we have always done in history) we will eventually decide on a something that can be used as a medium of exchange.

In the case of most civilizations on earth, the same conclusion was reached.

A medium of exchange needs to be durable, it needs to be easily recognized, unable to counterfeit, not readily available and able to be split apart.

So most went with gold or silver, based on the needed criteria.

Eventually, those with a lot of silver or gold found it pretty hard to just carry it around with them or keep it safely stashed. So they decided to issue notes backed by the metal. Meaning that if you had a note worth 10 gold pieces, you could either get it redeemed for the actual metal or simply use the note as a means of payment.

And here we are... back to square one.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
We've already started the transition. I hardly ever see any actual money in my wallet, it is mostly numbers on a computer screen and a debit card.

But a completely cashless society brings up some interesting thoughts. What do we think those who control the numbers would do? They'll probably just put as many zeros behind that first number as they want. I'm sure they're already doing it, giving them Christ endless money to bribe people with.

But it's not "cashless" in the way I think the OP is desiring.

Star Trek is really cashless as in no one works for money and no one has to pay for anything except those few items I mentioned. Not even the artisan goods like Picard's brother produced are paid for; he gives them away. They have value as gifts and people love to eat at his cafe because they recognize the artisan quality of his food and wine - that's it.

a reply to: TerryDon79


Agreed, you can have a society/economy without physical money but not without currency.

a reply to: dug88

I was wondering about a movie to watch today, so thank you for your post.

In Time it is.

I think some people confuse/conflate "cashless" with a society with no currency or ability to trade.

That is not true. Cash can be discarded without discarding the currency system or the ability to trade among one another.

originally posted by: introvert
I think some people confuse/conflate "cashless" with a society with no currency or ability to trade.

That is not true. Cash can be discarded without discarding the currency system or the ability to trade among one another.

I was confused by this as well. The OP, however, seems to be going for the fiction fantasy concept of Gene Rodenbury's world without any form of currency, not the modern concept of a cashless society in which "money" only exists electronically.

a reply to: dug88

Ferengi did have money.

Gold-pressed latinum was a substance that could not be replicated giving it value. It's one of the things I was referring to. If I recall my lore correctly, the show creators made it specifically so they could have the dirty capitalist Ferengi introduced.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

That was my understanding of the OP's post - truly cashless not just all electronic because all electronic does nothing to remove anything related to the current economy.

a reply to: zatara

Tried to give a thought tho, how a moneyless world would function but again and again came back to the needs of man and his willingnes to trade something for something. Which ends up with an accepted easy to pocket currency we all like to have enough of....and then I am back at square one. As if it is a law of nature, something universal which occurs throughout the universe. Money, a natural evolving part of a society.

Indeed money is something that naturally arises within any sufficiently advanced society. Here's something I posted a few days ago related to this:

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

If we were to ever interact with other intelligent species in our galaxy the same thing would apply in order for us to conduct trade, we would need to agree on some commonly accepted currency, some type of interstellar cryptocurrency would be really cool. You can bet they aren't going to just give us everything we ask for and hold our hands singing songs, unless maybe they've figured out a way to create anything they need at the click of a button. Even if technology could magically meet all our material needs we'd still have the problem of space scarcity, because habitable planets are rare and terraforming isn't easy or fast. We cannot all live on a river side mansion, it's just not possible. Capitalism isn't going anywhere any time soon: Debunking Post Capitalism

I think that a moneyless society can only work if there has been a radical change in the way we think about possession, status and power of the individual. Mankind as it is, with his greedy selfsatisfying ego is not ready for such a world. If I am correct the universum of Star Trek is moneyless. Maybe an ardent trekkie can enlight us how this world works.

Well I've barely watched the show I believe they have a device which can create anything they need by manipulating matter. Another relevant quote:

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

Unless we figure out how to create a Star Trek replicator we will never achieve a moneyless society. But lets say we do create a replicator, it doesn't matter how cheap it is to build a house because space will still be scarce. Also, many items have value because they were painstakingly hand crafted, like high end sports cars and watches or works of art like paintings and statues.

So how do we ever decide who gets the best houses and the best cars if we have no money? I believe money will always have a place in society and people have a right to own things they pay for instead of society owning everything. The fundamental flaw with this type of socialist thinking is that it's based on an unrealistic view of how society works, a lack of understanding of human nature.

originally posted by: introvert
I think some people confuse/conflate "cashless" with a society with no currency or ability to trade.

That is not true. Cash can be discarded without discarding the currency system or the ability to trade among one another.

I guess what the OP probably should have said was "moneyless" or something. Physical cash and/or coins are still necessary for any society imo though because it allows transactions to occur at any time and place without technology or in cases where the technology fails, and provides anonymity when a transaction might need to remain off the records.

I don’t want to go cashless, I live in anonymity and I like it that way. Do you want someone to track everything you do. How much liquor you buy? How much you spend on the ladies? How much you gamble?

Pay your bills in cash for one month and I bet you become more frugal with your money. Credit cards are just a number.

a reply to: Lumenari

"Eventually, those with a lot of silver or gold found it pretty hard to just carry it around with them or keep it safely stashed. So they decided to issue notes backed by the metal. Meaning that if you had a note worth 10 gold pieces, you could either get it redeemed for the actual metal or simply use the note as a means of payment. "

There is much truth in what you have pointed out. I've long pondered on how the Galla Placidia and the Theodosians managed to extricate themselves with all their wealth from the Italian peninsula to Byzantium before the ultimate collapse of the western Empire. Did some research and discovered this:

www.ancient.eu...

Although banking and money-lending generally remained a local affair there are records of merchants taking out a loan in one port and paying it off in another once the goods were delivered and sold on. There is also abundant evidence of a free-trade economy beyond the reaches of the empire and independent of the larger cities and army camps.

So the answer lay in trade and in the Roman currency, gold/silver coinage and its use in paying for goods traded about the Empire. As I came to understand it, the Theodosians (just an example), and indeed the entire Roman Senate which was relocated out of Rome to Constantinople, escaped the barbarian hordes via ocean trade routes. They would buy up "stuffs" to be shipped and sold in Constantinople to recoup their "cash".

Cash basically came to exist to facilitate trade and to establish relative and stable values. Its also handy for collecting taxes.

To the OP's point, I'd guess we could evolve to a "cashless" society, currency being just 1s and Zeros. However, the biggest problem we face today is the myth that cash is a store of value. It isn't; it depreciates over time. Today's dollar is worth something like 5 1903 cents. A far better store of value is gold or silver or platinum. Problem with precious metals is that they don't pay any interest.