Makes it easier to buy food and pay for rent.
My landlord doesn’t want to barter for goods and services on a monthly basis.
Why is currency so essential?
Submitted 6 months ago by Daft_ish@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I being obtuse, for sure, but why does your land lord need you to provide him goods and services?
FaceDeer@fedia.io 6 months ago
You answered your question in the sentence right after your question. The landlord owns the property and so he can do what he wants with it. He's letting you live there but has decided he wants something in exchange for letting you live there. If currency didn't exist he'd want something else in exchange.
classic@fedia.io 6 months ago
Going back far enough, scarcity is the answer. We technically live in a post-scarcity world now. But we are bound by the models we developed when it existed.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Landlords exist to extract value.
theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Can be exchanged for goods and services
canadaduane@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Here’s my take:
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We’re built for about 150 relationships max (Dunbar number), and yet we benefit from cooperation above that threshold. Rather than make it so we have to have a personal relationship with everyone who could possibly benefit us, we accepted a ramped down version of relationship we call “transactions”. This is a very weak replacement for a relationship, but it is a sort of “micro-relationship” in that for a brief moment two people who don’t know each other can kind of care about each other during an exchange. Through specialization, we can do something well that doesn’t just benefit the handful of friends and neighbors we have, but tens of thousands and possibly millions of people via transactions.
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There is a process called “commensuration” in the social sciences, where people start to make one thing commensurate with another, even in wildly different domains. For example, to understand the value of a forest and to convey its importance to decision makers we might say “this forest is worth $100 billion”. It’s kind of weird to do this (how do leaves and trees and anthills and beetles equal imaginary humoney?) But slowly, over time, we have made many things commensurate to dollars at various scales. (I don’t think this is a good thing, but it does have benefits). In short, more and more things that were part of an implicit economy of relationships (e.g. can the neighbor girl babysit tonight?) have entered the explicit domain of the monetary economy (e.g. sittercity).
IMO, in order to participate in the huge value generated by this monetary economy, people sometimes lose the forest for the trees (so to speak) and forget what really matters (e.g. excellence of character, deep relationships, new experiences, etc.) because it seems like we might be able to put off those things until “after” we square away this whole money thing first. But maybe “after” never comes–and the hollow life of a consumer capitalist drains the inner ecological diversity of a soulful life.
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This kind of thoughtful introspection is the only reason to get out of bed in the morning. That, and dogs. Dogs are wonderful.
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neidu2@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Because they represent a resource, concrete or abstract. Currency is easily exchanged, either for other currencies, or for goods and services. This allows for a lot more opportunities than hauling around a swarm of sheep for bartering at the car dealership.
Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
On one end carrying sheep would be annoying, but so is a credit score; arguably both are sources of noise distracting humanity from actually improving at all
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
We had currency without credit scores for about three thousand years prior to the first credit score agency (1841 from what I found). Having credit score agencies is just a modern problem and their prevalence in the past fifty years is a demonstration of how shitty our capitalist system has gotten.
neidu2@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Credit scores aren’t a direct result of currency. Credit scores are the result of lending and credit, which is possible without currency.
Example: “I could give you this car if you promised to bring me schwiftyfive thousand sheep tomorrow, but according to my records you’re only good for schiftytwo sheep. Sorry pal. Here, first borrow this chicken, and give me an egg every day for a few years to prove that you’re the kind of guy/gal/ghoul who honors debts, and we can discuss the matter again.”
IonAddis@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because it’s very difficult to get things you need to live solely through barter. Many trades are very niche, and an economy that uses money allows those trades to continue being viable parts of society.
Like, think of plumbing. If everything goes well, you don’t need a plumber. But when you do…you really need it. Now imagine being the plumber who wants some bread and eggs but the farmer has no problems currently that needs the plumber’s skills. Plumber can’t eat, leaves profession, there’s now no plumber when the pipes do break.
Obviously, the next thought here might be, “Well, why doesn’t the plumber say if they get eggs and bread now, they’ll come and fix your toilet later if needed?” But that sort of re-invents credit, right? “I’ll trade 3 future plumbing problems for 3 boxes of eggs now.” If you have that, why not money?
So basically, money is very useful. It can be traded for many things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get if you were only able to offer as barter a specific item that might be rejected by the other person you want to barter with. Money is a “universal” trade good, and it’s also easy to store (you don’t have to have lots of physical room to store your Universal Trade Good).
The BEHAVIOR of people surrounding this very useful thing can absolutely be suspect, depending on the person (greedy sociopaths hoarding wealth)–but that’s a human thing, not because money is innately a bad thing. It’s a social problem, not a technology problem. You could totally have a greedy hoarder storing up a non-money trade item too…see people and toilet paper/sanitizer during Covid.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Consider what we used as currency before it was currency. You would have to barter before, which was inefficient. Common currency saves you and everyone involved time. Instead of having to barter for every item, which would also require you to do carry all of those items, you can just pay with currency now.
credo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We can think of it as a universal language for trading. It doesn’t matter what item you eventually want, you can trade money to get it.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Extropolating, want, or greed, is what gives money its value?
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’ll trade you 6 lima beans for a salt packet.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No, I need this salt for lima beans.
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s not exactly true. Barter was never used like that in the past. People used gift giving systems or other trust based systems in daily life. Barter was only used with strangers and that was not a common occurrence. These trust based systems do work in smaller settings but break down in large settings where interacting with strangers is the norm.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Time, agree, time is what is essential to everyone here on this planet.
kevincox@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
A lot of cultures ended up with effective currencies. Whether that was grains of rice or chickens there ended up a small number of items that had a well understood value and ended up being the default item of trade, not because the receiver needed those items but because they were known to be easily exchanged with others.
moog@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Modern society is only possible because of global trade networks. Global trade networks would never work without currency. If a person spends all their day fabricating metal sheets they need a way to buy bread to feed their family. Otherwise we’d all be back to farming our lives away.
Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
God? Jesus is that you? Or at least someone omnipotent
You know with absolute certainty the only way people can trade is capitalism?
Thavron@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Trade is not the same as capitalism.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 months ago
Even in a non-capitalist economy, currency would still make trading easier. It simply might not be exchanging hands between private individuals but between governments.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There is also a meta discussion here on liquidity. People want currency because it is easy to exchange. Your landlord might be okay with getting paid in a mix of gallons of milk and some cuts of beef, but most will not. Trading for “non currency value” is not uncommon. You might get paid with stocks depending on your work. If you buy a car you might trade in your old one.
JackLSauce@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Those are 2 very different questions
eran_morad@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It lubricates economic activity (not a lewd joke). It makes it easier to exchange shit, which leads to a more robust economy. Would you rather barter?
snooggums@midwest.social 6 months ago
Sometimes I would rather barter because the additional effort would make things more important instead of all the mass produced crap that is ruining the world. A robust wconomy tends to mean an excess of stuff we don’t need.
But it wouldn’t reeally work out that way, just wishful thinking.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You can either barter or you can have currency. Currency is the means through which the economy functions. You need something abstract to indicate value. That’s currency.
fossphi@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Maybe it’s not as essential as one is led to believe. The book Debt by David Graeber deals with the very question you asked. I highly recommend you check it out.
I can’t really summarise it well since I haven’t finished it myself, so maybe peruse the Wikipedia entry. But the first couple of chapters try to answer your question
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Barter was never a thing in daily life. No anthropogist found evidence for that. Trust based systems were used, but those don’t work well when they population increases and interaction with strangers happens more. That’s where currency takes over.
Why currency is the most important thing right now? Because currency at the moment is status and many people seek a high status on society.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s not because we require currency in order to meet our basic needs?
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Today, yes. We’re dealing with a few billion people with stuff shipped across the planet now.
NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We live in capitalism
rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
Idk why the correct answer always attracts several downvites on Lemmy. This is literally it… Money is useful because it can be used as payment, it can be exchanged for goods… The reason why our whole lives revolve around it is because we have shaped society to be that way… We call that capitalism.
Thavron@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
… Bottom text?
NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s literally in the name. CAPITALism
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because it gives the ruling class something to hold over the poors so the rest of society is so terrified of becoming poor they forget that they’re being used as literal slaves for the state
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This is the crux of it. Currency is essential because it allows people to exchange goods and services in a timely manner. What it is used for today is not essential to individuals.
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Step 1: Hoard a bunch of stuff no one really cares about.
Step 2: Wait until you’ve hoarded the majority of that stuff in your local area.
Step 3: Start telling people how important the thing you’ve been hoarding is.
Step 4: People are dumb and actually start believing the useless thing you’ve hoarded is actually important.
Step 5: Enjoy your new status as the man who convinced everyone something completely useless was important.
Scrof@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Currency is an energy equivalent in human society. I’d say our current ridiculously exploitable system with greedy for profit banks, rampant credits, tax havens, exchange rates manipulation, dividends and stock market micro trading leaves a lot to be desired, yet it is still incredibly convenient and relatively stable even with all the major crashes. Beats barter that’s for sure.
Nougat@fedia.io 6 months ago
Every exchange between people requires an exchange of value. If we both agree on a common "thing" as a representation of value, we can be more accurate and flexible in our transactions.
satanmat@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because that philosophy has won over the most people.
I didn’t say it was the best. You may or may not believe that living in a yurt foraging mushrooms might be the best life; but “western “ civilization has deemed capitalism to be the way.
Under capitalism people need money to use for the things they want that they cannot make themselves.
A wise man once said “Money can’t buy me Love” —but it certainly improves your bargaining position
FaceDeer@fedia.io 6 months ago
I should note that currency and capitalism are not the same thing. Pretty much every existing economic system has currency of some form, it's just a way of tracking the relative values of various things so that people can make agreements about who gets what.
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
This is a very important distinction. Even socialism and communism can use currency to track value.
Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Kinda like when an AI is overtrained on one thing that wasn’t really correlated to its original goal, we’ve attempted to create a system that organizes collaboration between people; were now so overtrained on acquiring wealth that some would rather the planet burn than risk acquiring slightly less.
Its similar enough to a trail of ants in a death spiral; the same essential survival instincts that their society depends on, now nefariously dooming all involved to a slow starvation.
That being said similarly to the ants most of the populace will do the average (as it’s what’s kept us alive this long so how could it harm us?) And continue the spiral, but if one individual is able to reconnect the spiral to the main pheramone train the entire death spiral may be avoided
classic@fedia.io 6 months ago
I appreciate the analogy
morphballganon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
People want purpose. Most people are too inept to grasp greater purposes, so rewarding them with ornate paper slips keeps them placated.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So money is used to control people?
morphballganon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh absolutely. Consider how inflation and the cost of living rise faster than the average wage.
credo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The first question has been answered already a few different ways. As to the sub-question:
Why do we focus solely on this one aspect of life?
It’s because we as a society lost track of other aspects of life, e.g. relationships for the sake of relationships- which if we question our basic humanity, we also need. Instead we focus on materialistic requirements, both for basic survival but also for status, security, and comfort. I would argue that second aspect (status) is an indirect (and inefficient/ineffective) means to accomplish the forgotten parts of life (relationships).
Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Who cares about a return on one’s effort amirite
moon@lemmy.cafe 6 months ago
Life ain’t nothin but bitches n money
jbrains@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens. Enjoy.
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Image
Simpsons meme aside –
Those with currency can have significantly more options than those without it. I’m of a privileged state where if I wanted to drop everything and visit another country for two weeks, there’s nothing stopping me financially. Not many people have that luxury.
otp@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Your comment made me realize that OP wasn’t asking about why we need currency as a society, but why people keep trying to get more money.
I hate when the post title and post content ask two seemingly different questions, lol
AtariDump@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The XY problem is asking about your attempted solution rather than your actual problem. This leads to enormous amounts of wasted time and energy, both on the part of people asking for help, and on the part of those providing help.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s a hard question to ask. I’d rather pin down why it’s essential then ask why it’s deemed the only thing that is essential.
xmunk@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Lemmy supports editing posts, deleting posts and making new posts - if a question is obtuse the author can always take it down and post something more precise and less open to misinterpretation. Of it’s a language barrier issue I’m sympathetic but this just seems to have been a needlessly clickbaity title.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
God, that was such a funny joke back in the day. One of the moments where the writers were at the top of their game.