A World with no Money (can we survive capitalism?)

[Serpent]

And yet they [the Asian Empire] have endured and are still there.

There have been a lot of Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, Indian and etc. dynasties, hegemonies, rulerships, yes, and Asia is still there. There are still Asian people there. If you want to consider that a single continuous empire, all right.

I agree they do show signs of better awareness of the environment, but their growth into capitalism and industry combined with the damage and rate of damage we're doing, is probably moot in that it's too late. I was only reading something about the Antarctic this morning, and it's a grim view for the future with rising seas flooding coastlines.

Much of their inland, up-slope territory is beautiful but unproductive. I can't see the empire wielding a lot of international clout without the port cities.

And you know that being born into the top 5% means that the remaining 95% don't have that advantage. The numbers are on my side.

I don't think we're even in the same ball-park!

Otherwise you're suggesting that a person with only average functioning can perform high functioning jobs, or worse, that a person of low functioning can perform high functioning jobs, which clearly is not the case. We are all different in our little ways and capitalism highlights that fact, while civilization is blamed for it.

I'm not suggesting anything about IQ or jobs. The class system of civilizations has nothing to do with ability, and everything to do with who gets the chance to become what.
I'm talking about ruling class passing the rule onto their children, whether they have any aptitude or not, thereby barring all other, non-ruling-class children from any chance of ruling, no matter how much ability they may have. (With the exception of high-performing generals - they get a look in every now and then.)
I'm talking about hereditary caste. Hence the mention of slaves, serfs and pariahs.

But even if you just look at a modern industrial society, discounting the elite behind their high walls, you can plainly see the social stratification. The children of CEO's have an advantage from birth to death over the children of professionals and executives, who have an advantage from birth to death over the children of skilled labourers, who have an advantage over the children on manual labourerer, who have an advantage over the children of the unemployed, incarcerated, displaced, undocumented, addicted, etc - the hopeless class tends to stay hopeless generation after generation and perpetuate its own miseries, because their opportunities for betterment are curtailed - from birth to death.
And the poverty line can be moved around, but the percent of the disenfranchised population doesn't match the number who can't/won't "function" That variously estimated at 12 to 35 % are, and remain, the underclass.
TBC - i got timed out last time.

[Lozza]

Serpent,

I don't see surplus population being calculated at all, other than government census reports.

It's not calculated in concrete numbers - though I have heard a quote from a conservative think-tank that the optimal unemployment level for business is 7.5%.

Yes, that's about right. The period during the 70's and 80's of there being more work than workers, won't be seen again. Employees had too much power in determining what a "fair" wage was. It could be argued that unionism caused us to over-price ourselves...I know I was part of a union that went out on strike, and this is literally, for extra biscuits at morning break time and paper towels instead of cloth towels...FFS! Unions did a lot of good, but at times they were their own worst enemies.

I see surplus population as a result of the capitalist system, for it's the only outcome one can expect from such a system as big businesses grow ever bigger by absorbing smaller big businesses such as what happened in the late 1980's after the 1987 Stock Market Crash. Corporations that were cashed-up went around buying corporations that were struggling due to their high exposure in the stock market.

How does corporate buy-out relate to the peon's having more children than can grow up to be employed?

Firstly, we weren't talking of having more children than can be employed, and secondly, when corporations merge or take-over another corporation, they rationalize their internal infrastructure and workforce, culling the excess workforce. So when a corporation gets bigger, its workforce actually gets smaller. That's the point I was making.

Can we agree that we both understand enough about history and its ripple effect into modern day so as to keep the conversation in contemporary times? It's bending my head a little with jumping around the time-line, and I think that it becomes a bit confusing for our audience, as well as each other.

The fact that business and industry don't need so many manual labourers has not yet penetrated to the religious institutions... but then, overproducing manufactury still needs lots of consumers, and the "financial industry" (one of my favourite oxymorons) needs a large terminally indebted class. Of course, that can't go on: as the wage-earner numbers shrink, defaults increase and eventually nobody can afford all the stuff that keeps spilling off the conveyor-belts.

Well, that's part of the plan...the financial institutions will become the land barons of the future, owning all property. The private individual will not be a property owner, but a tenant that rents. Banks don't care about manufacturers and the baubles they produce to sell, they want to own all the property for the regular income. The business mantra is "little fish are sweet"....lots of small clients giving their money adds up to more than a few big clients, and is more regular.

In the mechanized world we have recently left, it was quite labour intensive, but as big business has become more technologically adept, enabling them to reduce their workforce to maintain or increase profits, much of this sort of work has disappeared. It's unfair to expect that people that have trained and worked in these more hands-on jobs, to suddenly retrain into a more technical role.

It doesn't matter: for every tech job that's created, a hundred, or a thousand manual jobs disappear. They never come back, and they're never replaced by new jobs. For each shift toward mechanization, a large group of people become permanently unemployable. As long as it was slaves, children and immigrant, no social upheaval. When it's white male citizens, you get a Trump.

That's what I was alluding to. As for Trump, forget him, he's a peon, a Schmuck and narcissistic personality disorder in contrast to the usual sociopaths that occupy the White House, like Obama and the Bush family. His personality means nothing, only what he puts his signature to has any meaning, and even then, he is TOLD what to sign.

IMHO, technology is the conspirator here. The masses have always been considered as canon fodder, regardless of their socio-economic status, except if they are in the top 5% of wealth.

Their socio-economic level is what makes them the masses. And if you look at the composition of armies, all through civilization, you'll see the class reflected perfectly, both on the battle-ground and in the cemeteries. Every army need lots more foot-soldiers than officers - but how do you get them to enlist? Make sure there's no safer, better-paying job available. Conscription, too, is only a viable option if there are enough workers back home to keep the munitions factories in operation. Worse comes to worst: you put the women to work, but it's hard to put them back in their place, after.

Yes, that's all self-evident.

I would ban the existence of "politicians", who have questionable qualifications and more questionable motivations. We would need planners...people who can plan cities, suburbs, transport systems, technologies and their uses, education, co-ordination of joint projects, distribution of essential services and food, things of that nature.

My ideal government consists of a "jury" of administrators: random people called to do governance duty for a two-year rotation - each body to be made of 50% fresh recruits each year, so that 50% always have some experience. The administrations can still be in a tier structure: from small local jurisdictions to larger and larger co-ordinating functions. Each governing body would have unlimited access to specialists in every field of public works and service - experts who have a vocation for their chosen field. They would also be able to consult the citizenry at large regarding community projects: announce the proposal, get feedback from the people affected; if approved by the populace, devise the plans, allocate the material resources, announce the project, appoint team leaders, and recruit volunteers.

I initially thought of random rotation too, but it presents other problems such as not having the aptitude for the job. It should be a rotating jury or committee of qualified people for the specific areas they will oversee. We already live in a world of the least qualified person making the important decisions. That's part of the problem we have.

Yes: [corporations] living as it does on debt, it is forced to grow: every quarter, it has to give more money to its shareholders than they invested. But they have the advantage of mega-clout in employment practice, price-setting, tax-dodging, downloading their liabilities and misdmeanours onto government, getting subsidies and bailouts. They've done wonderfully well, string-pulling-wise.
But, again, the consuming public has finite resources. As every bloodsucking parasite ought to know: if the host dies, you're plum outa luck.

Not quite. For corporations, debt is a tool. They can borrow money at lower than normal interest rates because they are borrowing so much, then have a tax deduction for the borrowed money, and use the money to expand their operations or invest at better interest rates than they are paying. It's the average citizen that lives in debt and doesn't use it as a tool. But I'm with you in relation to the other perks they have in contrast to the rest of us. They influence the law-making and tax treatment, not us.

[Lozza]

I agree they do show signs of better awareness of the environment, but their growth into capitalism and industry combined with the damage and rate of damage we're doing, is probably moot in that it's too late. I was only reading something about the Antarctic this morning, and it's a grim view for the future with rising seas flooding coastlines.

Much of their inland, up-slope territory is beautiful but unproductive. I can't see the empire wielding a lot of international clout without the port cities.

Since that flooding will affect everyone else too, that's a fairly moot point. The time is fast approaching whereby the format of navies is going to change drastically, anyway. They can fire a steel rod from space that will cause more damage than a nuke without the radioactive fallout, and though it can be intercepted, it can't be stopped. The best they can do is nominally effect its trajectory. Who needs aircraft carriers to launch fighters then? Aircraft carriers will still be around for awhile, but their role will be somewhat different.

And you know that being born into the top 5% means that the remaining 95% don't have that advantage. The numbers are on my side.

I don't think we're even in the same ball-park!

Haha! That's right!

Otherwise you're suggesting that a person with only average functioning can perform high functioning jobs, or worse, that a person of low functioning can perform high functioning jobs, which clearly is not the case. We are all different in our little ways and capitalism highlights that fact, while civilization is blamed for it.

I'm not suggesting anything about IQ or jobs. The class system of civilizations has nothing to do with ability, and everything to do with who gets the chance to become what.

It's both, it's not just one or the other. Rulers do occasionally get overturned by those that didn't have the same privilege.

I'm talking about ruling class passing the rule onto their children, whether they have any aptitude or not, thereby barring all other, non-ruling-class children from any chance of ruling, no matter how much ability they may have. (With the exception of high-performing generals - they get a look in every now and then.)
I'm talking about hereditary caste. Hence the mention of slaves, serfs and pariahs.

Yes, but IMHO, elitism is money-based, not civilization-based. Otherwise it's pointless to envisage a "better" civilization without money, for all the problems you outline. It's a bit of a contradiction as well as a pointless exercise, isn't it? Elitism is about the protection of wealth and property, so by eliminating money, we go a long way to eliminating elitism...I'm sure "position" may become the new form elitism in a world without money, but that's another issue and discussion.

But even if you just look at a modern industrial society, discounting the elite behind their high walls, you can plainly see the social stratification. The children of CEO's have an advantage from birth to death over the children of professionals and executives, who have an advantage from birth to death over the children of skilled labourers, who have an advantage over the children on manual labourerer, who have an advantage over the children of the unemployed, incarcerated, displaced, undocumented, addicted, etc - the hopeless class tends to stay hopeless generation after generation and perpetuate its own miseries, because their opportunities for betterment are curtailed - from birth to death.
And the poverty line can be moved around, but the percent of the disenfranchised population doesn't match the number who can't/won't "function" That variously estimated at 12 to 35 % are, and remain, the underclass.
TBC - i got timed out last time.

Fine. End all forms of civilization. Problem solved. Money wasn't the issue in the first place, it's civilization. Because that's what you're saying, whether or not that was your intention. In a post-apocalyptic era, there should be no civilization is your upshot, which means no organized co-operation between the survivors. Are you sure you want to run with that?

[Serpent]

Programming starts at home.

How did it get into the home?
By domestication (as illustrated by the dog - coyote comparison) I mean turning a tribal species into an urban species. There is that long period of settled farming and nomadic herding when a lot of changes took place in our social organizations, our attitude to property, our marriage and child-rearing arrangements, our diet, our mores, habits and expectations. By the time we have walled cities, the human tribe is 1. diverse; no longer related by blood to every other member of the society, possibly not even all speaking the same language and 3. stratified - divided into those who command and those who obey; 3a. women are subservient to the men of their own class and 4. ruled by a single strong-man or family; very soon thereafter, they have a standing professional army and institutional religion wherein the clergy have status equal to the aristocracy (but not the king - popes were invented much later)

At this point, the lowest class is usually the peasants - and very soon, they no longer own the land they work: it's been given to an aristocrat, who is now their boss. At about the same time, you see developing the urban poor: those who do the most menial work and get the least reward. (This is a pretty constant rule in civilized societies: the more essential a job, the less it's valued: once you get up to the class that produces absolutely nothing, they are precious beyond measure.

There's no guarantees that some form religion won't pop up again, especially in a post apocalyptic era when people are feeling insecure. Then there are the subsequent generations of people. Having a mystical view of the universe is an incredibly common feature amongst all indigenous peoples without any formal institutional religion to be exposed to.

Oh, that's okay. Good stories, masks and dances, no problem. Especially if the belief-system it includes reverence for the earth kinship with all life.

The religions you and I are familiar with have been born out of civilizations using currency, so I don't find it unusual that they are corrupt, but expect them to be.

Yes, institutional religion; churches. It's still not about money. It's about control. This is where the indoctrination in the homes came from. Establishing an earth-heaven hierarchy where God is the Big Boss and everybody else has to do as He says, OR ELSE!!, and then establishing the earthly hierarchy of the civilization: who gets to give orders to whom, and who has the right to punish what disobedience. Write that into scripture, into canon, into catechism, hymns, sermons, lessons - and into law of the land.
Obey well enough; accept your lot; never cross you betters, and you'll live happily ever after your death. Argue, question, rock the boat, disobey, and you'll live forever in even worse condition than the slave-driver can mete out.

As an aside, I would suggest that the reason Catholic priests aren't allowed to marry and take a vow of celibacy, is because families cost money to support.

That's a minor consideration, as most of them don't live in poverty. Rothchilds and Windsors did okay financially, despite marrying and reproducing. The main reason is loyalty: you don't want priests having relationships that might supersede their duty to the church, or having another source of solace and validation. The real reason was something in the warped head of Saul of Tarsus.

[homo sapiens familiaris] That's an interesting idea. I can't help but think that humanity has been tampered with. By whom or what, I have no idea, but there just seems to be something amiss to what we are told to believe about human history. Well, even as history has unfolded during my life, I've watched the victors write it, and apparently, every author's a nice guy. Why do I find that hard to believe, let alone the rest of history? The pyramids all around the world, all using identical technology, only differing in styles and materials. The fact that all of the major pyramids are in line within one degree around the globe, on a line crossing the equator...I can't remember if it was 38 degrees or 18 degrees, but they're in line. Then there's the under-water pyramids off the coast of Japan, about 80 feet under water. They would have to have been built prior to the melting of the last Ice Age. It all suggests a more global community than we have been taught to believe. What kind of global community? Again, I have no idea, it's anyone's guess, but I believe we should be more open minded about truly ancient history.

An acquaintance is working on a novel that deal with a prehistoric alien race; it speculates on the tampering. I don't buy it, but lots of stuff happened that we don't know about.

Well, I'm talking about empires that most of those 82 are a part of.

But they're not part of anything. They're invested all over the globe, control things all over the globe; have homes and vehicles all over the globe. They may each have been born into a specific empire, but they don't belong to anything: everything be;longs to them.

As far as empires that have a standing army, yes, I'm sure.

Except for the mercenary armies that salute no flag.

That infant in an adult's body, Zuckerberg, is creating his own cryptocurrency to create his own economy within Facebook, effectively making him El Supremo of a new form of nation that's trans global.

I'm not much worried about the make-believe czars.

[Serpent]

End all forms of civilization. Problem solved. Money wasn't the issue in the first place, it's civilization. Because that's what you're saying, whether or not that was your intention.

Of-bloody-course that my intention!!
I'm not ending civilization; civilization is ending itself. People were pretty much okay for a million years, then they settled down to farming, after a mere 30,000 years, they clumped into the squalor, drudgery, humiliation and crazyness of urban civilization, and from there, it took a mere 8,000 to destroy everything we need for survival. I'm saying the history of civilization is the genesis of apocalypse: its culmination of fire and blood was contained in its inception.

[Lozza]

Serpent,

Definition of civilization
1a : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development
specifically : the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained.

Mate, the topic is about a world with no money, not a world with no civilization. It's my belief you are conflating the two, causing us to have a circular argument and I think we're both getting frustrated...I know I am, and judging by the tone of some your comments, I think you are too. So can we please drop the evils of civilization and accept the above definition? As I maintain that the evils you outline are predominately money and ownership oriented, not specifically attributable to civilization per se. If we eliminate money and the concept of ownership (materialism), we're on the right path.

[Lozza]

Programming starts at home.

How did it get into the home?

It (programming) starts with parents, then it's the immediate outside influences and the society and any other extraneous factors.

As an aside, I would suggest that the reason Catholic priests aren't allowed to marry and take a vow of celibacy, is because families cost money to support.

That's a minor consideration, as most of them don't live in poverty. Rothchilds and Windsors did okay financially, despite marrying and reproducing. The main reason is loyalty: you don't want priests having relationships that might supersede their duty to the church, or having another source of solace and validation. The real reason was something in the warped head of Saul of Tarsus.

Oh, FFS! The Catholic Church is NOT a bank or a monarchy, it's a completely different model of wealth acquisition based upon the fact that money is donated to the Church in the "passing of the plate", which is its major income stream, and so, priests not marrying is key to the majority of that income stream going up river. The end.

Seriously, you're arguing for the sake of argument, not digesting what has been said.

An acquaintance is working on a novel that deal with a prehistoric alien race; it speculates on the tampering. I don't buy it, but lots of stuff happened that we don't know about.

It's as plausible as anything else. What's implausible to me is humans being the only sentient life, with the universe existing as a playground for us alone. I see that as a hangover from religious dominated thinking of the past. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that we're a petri dish of some sort.

As far as empires that have a standing army, yes, I'm sure.

Except for the mercenary armies that salute no flag.

I don't care how much money one has, you can't suddenly buy enough mercenaries to combat a standing army. Here's why...

1. The cost difference of mercenaries compared to the cost of soldiers is substantial...mercs don't work for small pay, they work for big pay, while soldiers are predominately true believers in the cause, the flag, the nation, blah, blah, blah or are conscripted;

2. A standing army not only has established soldiers but all of the equipment;

3. A standing army also possesses a navy and an air-force, aside from the tanks and artillery for the soldiers;

4. A standing army has the infrastructure and the logistics already in place.

Mercs are used for small, often clandestine skirmishes or to supplement existing soldiers, but due to everything I've outlined, are not a sole source of an army. China can have 2 million troops on the ground in 48 hours, and about another 10 million in a couple of weeks...try getting that many mercs in that time-frame, let alone all the equipment and logistics in place. I don't think so!

[Serpent]

Definition of civilization
1a : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development
specifically : the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained.

Mate, the topic is about a world with no money, not a world with no civilization. It's my belief you are conflating the two, causing us to have a circular argument and I think we're both getting frustrated...I know I am, and judging by the tone of some your comments, I think you are too. So can we please drop the evils of civilization and accept the above definition? As I maintain that the evils you outline are predominately money and ownership oriented, not specifically attributable to civilization per se. If we eliminate money and the concept of ownership (materialism), we're on the right path.

I do accept the definition. That's exactly why I can't subdivide it into periods, as if a segment of history ended and another begun at some definite date. It's all continuous: capitalist economy was built on the products of the Industrial Revolution, which was an outgrowth of the Renaissance, which was a result of the Middle Ages, which was a relict of the Roman Empire - and the thread of feudalism runs thought all these periods, including inherited lands, titles, money, status, mores, manners, values and beliefs.

It's exactly because i do recognize civilization that I try to account for all that it entails: division of labour, specialization, social stratification, currency, standing army, institutional [state] religion, bureaucracy, infrastructure, taxation, a legal code, service occupations, development of technologies, the concept of progress, propaganda, spectator sport and public entertainment, exploitation of resources, higher education, monument-building, trade and commerce, territorial expansion, art and literature, penal system, banking, spying, begging, hustling, busking and prostitution.
Like fireworks, it's magnificent, terrifying and unsustainable.

I can imagine a utopian arrangement that's post-civilized; that's beyond our present understanding of civilization, having retained the best accomplishments of past civilization, discarded its worst faults and restored personal integrity, autonomy and dignity to its individuals. Lots of people can imagine that, but there is no path from here to there without land-mines.
The remnant of humanity will probably go back to the wild and resume its interrupted evolutionary process.

(I really need to get some work done today. Utopia needs a bigger block of time. I'll get back to it when I can.)

[Serpent]

It (programming) starts with parents,

How did the parents come by their beliefs? Parents apply the early programming; they don't write the code.

Oh, FFS! The Catholic Church is NOT a bank or a monarchy, it's a completely different model of wealth acquisition based upon the fact that money is donated to the Church in the "passing of the plate", which is its major income stream, and so, priests not marrying is key to the majority of that income stream going up river. The end.

Hardly. https://nationalpost.com/news/wealth-of-roman-catholic-church-impossible-to-calculate
Glossing over the fact that the majority of those 'donations', over the centuries, were in the form of tithes, which is next-of-kin to taxation, the RCC has been in the banking and real estate business for most of its life and of course amassing art and treasure, with a nice little sideline in the selling of indulgences, holy relics, marriage annulments, prayers, blessings, bishoprics and sainthoods. Now, its portfolio is diversified; it's got all kinds of industrial investments and trades on the NYSE. The donations mostly go to the actual charities the church supports, and to the upkeep of local parishes.

Seriously, you're arguing for the sake of argument, not digesting what has been said.

I disagree with some of what you said, because I believe you're overlooking some important factors, and misattributing some effects.

I don't care how much money one has, you can't suddenly buy enough mercenaries to combat a standing army.

A private army doesn't have to combat, or face a big standing army; it only has to align with one national army (or its black ops arm), using the transport, fuel, infrastructure and support of that army, against a smaller nation's tottering army to make all the difference in a regional dispute.

1. The cost difference of mercenaries compared to the cost of soldiers is substantial...mercs don't work for small pay, they work for big pay,

Yes, the American taxpayers have picked up the bill for quite a few of them: more "outsourcing."

It's enough to establish Blackwater as an extra-national entity - like Z's funny money making him the king of Facebookistan.

[Serpent]

Firstly, we weren't talking of having more children than can be employed,

I was. Surplus means too many. More than necessary. More than can be accommodated and supplied with necessities. Extra people who simply do not matter.

and secondly, when corporations merge or take-over another corporation, they rationalize their internal infrastructure and workforce, culling the excess workforce. So when a corporation gets bigger, its workforce actually gets smaller.

No: the corporate personnel files get smaller. The people who used to work there don't get erased from the world: they become unemployed - probably for life; they become surplus: a burden on the productive people.
As a species, we're naturally inclined to carry our young, old and wounded, but if too many are wounded at the same time, we can't afford to; they jeopardize the community.
And that is the whole point of maintaining a surplus population: all those unemployed people will be standing in line for the next low-paying job to be advertised, and a fathead can point to them and say to the workers: See my big pool of potential scabs? You'll take the pay-cut and be grateful you still have a job.

Can we agree that we both understand enough about history and its ripple effect into modern day so as to keep the conversation in contemporary times?

It's not a ripple. It's a straight line. No cutoff dates.

Well, that's part of the plan...the financial institutions will become the land barons of the future, owning all property. The private individual will not be a property owner, but a tenant that rents.

With what will they pay the rent if they're unemployed?

Banks don't care about manufacturers and the baubles they produce to sell,

They care about the bauble-manufacturers' ability to pay back their massive business loans and all the lovely interest.

they want to own all the property for the regular income.

Are you sure? It seems to me, banks would rather be in the mortgage business than the landlord business - you never have to unclog the drains or pay property tax. Else, how come foreclosed properties are auctioned off at a fraction of their value?

As for Trump, forget him, he's a peon, a Schmuck and narcissistic personality disorder in contrast to the usual sociopaths that occupy the White House, like Obama and the Bush family. His personality means nothing, only what he puts his signature to has any meaning, and even then, he is TOLD what to sign.

Way i hear it, The Donald never does what he's told and keeps tearing up papers he's already signed. Even if he did comply with some specific patron's instructions (Putin's maybe?) he can do an awful lot of harm in a short time.
And, no, I'm not going along with lumping Trump, Obama and Bush.
I may be pessimistic and jaundiced, but I truly don't believe that's an accurate characterization.

I initially thought of random rotation too, but it presents other problems such as not having the aptitude for the job.

In this case, the job is no different from organizing a family: needs, wants, priorities, resources, energy, manpower. Every householder and mother in the world does this routinely... most of them better than politicians are doing it now. The administrators don't need specialized skills: that's what the civil service and technical corps are for. The administrators don't need to oversee any specialized functions (any more than the present Minister of Human Resources is expected to know a damn thing about job placement); they just have to appoint qualified project leaders.

Not quite. For corporations, debt is a tool. They can borrow money at lower than normal interest

but not interest-free, so that's one place more money has to go than came

rates because they are borrowing so much, then have a tax deduction for the borrowed money,

but not an exemption from paying it back, with interest. A little interest on a lot of money is still a lot of money.

and use the money to expand their operations

Expand means make bigger. money has to be handed over to somebody else for building and equipment, and salaries - so that's money going out before any comes in from the expansion.

or invest at better interest rates than they are paying.

Why would a corporation get better interest on borrowed money than they're paying? Are they all competing with the banks and their own investors? Even if they could, they still have to pay their investors more than those investors gave them.
So, somebody else has to give them more

That doesn't change the fact they they always have to grow.

Exactly!! That's the crux of the matter. the limits to growth.

It's the average citizen that lives in debt and doesn't use it as a tool.

[/quote][/quote]
Everybody can't use it as tool. Somewhere down the line, at no matter how many removes, the loans come due. Somebody's got to pay for all that growth. The average citizen usually gets stuck with the bill, but what if he's maxed out his credit, hit the ceiling of his earning potential, and been made redundant, and the government can't raise any more revenue or get any more credit, and the corporations can't collect profits or pay dividends and banks have foreclosed on all the properties nobody can afford to rent -
What happens then?

[Lozza]

Firstly, we weren't talking of having more children than can be employed,

I was. Surplus means too many. More than necessary. More than can be accommodated and supplied with necessities. Extra people who simply do not matter.

I don't need to be patronized and have "surplus" explained to me, that's really quite insulting.

and secondly, when corporations merge or take-over another corporation, they rationalize their internal infrastructure and workforce, culling the excess workforce. So when a corporation gets bigger, its workforce actually gets smaller.

No: the corporate personnel files get smaller. The people who used to work there don't get erased from the world: they become unemployed -

Are you fucking serious?!? You're going to take the word "culling" literally?!? I would then have to ask what sort of fool are you to talk to someone that you believe thinks that corporations kill-off employees. I'm finished, as this is going nowhere and is just ridiculous.

[Serpent]

I don't need to be patronized and have "surplus" explained to me, that's really quite insulting.

And quoting the definition of civilization from a dictionary isn't?
You kept shifting the meaning of surplus population to corporate restructuring; I just wanted to put it back into context: it's a constant of civilized societies, not a byproduct of modern business. And it's important.

Are you fucking serious?!? You're going to take the word "culling" literally?!?

I was serious, but that's not what I said.
The point was that those redundant people lose their productivity, their value to society and their status. They become a burden to their class, and an asset (in the form of threat to uppity workers, and pool of cheap labour) to the elite. There is a third effect: they are often reduced to subsisting on criminal activities - and that, in turn, has other effects on the society.
The more important point was that this isn't restricted to capitalism or industrial society: the same has been true of all pyramid-structured civilizations.
But you've lost interest.
Fair enough.
I never meant to insult or upset you.

[Lozza]

I don't need to be patronized and have "surplus" explained to me, that's really quite insulting.

And quoting the definition of civilization from a dictionary isn't?
You kept shifting the meaning of surplus population to corporate restructuring; I just wanted to put it back into context: it's a constant of civilized societies, not a byproduct of modern business. And it's important.

The definition of "civilization" was to demonstrate that everything you blamed upon civilization was falsely attributed.

Are you fucking serious?!? You're going to take the word "culling" literally?!?

I was serious, but that's not what I said.
The point was that those redundant people lose their productivity, their value to society and their status. They become a burden to their class, and an asset (in the form of threat to uppity workers, and pool of cheap labour) to the elite. There is a third effect: they are often reduced to subsisting on criminal activities - and that, in turn, has other effects on the society.
The more important point was that this isn't restricted to capitalism or industrial society: the same has been true of all pyramid-structured civilizations.
But you've lost interest.
Fair enough.
I never meant to insult or upset you.

Well, it may not have been what you meant, but it was what you said, as it was clear you took the word "culling" literally instead of metaphorically. I understand what unemployment is and what it means for people when they find themselves in this position.

All groups have a pyramid structure, there's no avoiding it. Whether it occurs by choice or not, it's a natural dynamic of having "leadership" or people more adept or qualified, whatever, the pyramid occurs. Though I appreciate that it all too frequently represents inequality, it's not necessarily the case.

[Serpent]

The definition of "civilization" was to demonstrate that everything you blamed upon civilization was falsely attributed.

I don't think I've said anything demonstrably false about civilization. Some of it was speculation about present and future that I can't verify... but then, you've made one or two unverifiable projections, as well.

The definition of "surplus" was to demonstrate that you were repeatedly misrepresenting and underestimating the significance of surplus population.

Well, it may not have been what you meant, but it was what you said, as it was clear you took the word "culling" literally instead of metaphorically. I understand what unemployment is and what it means for people when they find themselves in this position.

That was an oversight on my part: I didn't take the word "culling" literally - I didn't consider it significant.
My argument was with your (several times!) putting the concept of surplus population in the limited context of modern western industrial employment, whereas, it's a far more pervasive social policy of power-structures far more comprehensive than a corporation; it affects the entire society - all civilized societies. It's one of the two or three fatal flaws of civilization.
Unemployment is a mere local, temporary symptom of the systemic malaise I was attempting to address.

All groups have a pyramid structure, there's no avoiding it.

No, they don't. Yes, there are several ways to avoid it.

Whether it occurs by choice or not, it's a natural dynamic of having "leadership" or people more adept or qualified, whatever, the pyramid occurs.

No, that isn't how or why.
("President Trump, leader of the free world." Which words in that title are not lies?)

Though I appreciate that it all too frequently represents inequality, it's not necessarily the case.

Yes, it is. By intent, form and function.

[WasupDude]

My friend you forgot about communism.
Can we survive we survive capitalism and communism?
What do you guys think?

[Serpent]

My friend you forgot about communism.
Can we survive we survive capitalism and communism?
What do you guys think?

What is communism? Communes exist, but does the ideology that makes it an "ism" - does the communist political/economic model exist on a national level?
If you can explain the principles and mechanics of communism, and show how well or badly it works in practice, I'll show you how to survive it.

[Lozza]

The definition of "civilization" was to demonstrate that everything you blamed upon civilization was falsely attributed.

I don't think I've said anything demonstrably false about civilization.

I do...if civilization is nothing more than the ability to write and therefore keep records, build upon information and add some culture of literature and poetry, then everything that you have ascribed to civilization is false. Everything that you have attributed to civilization, I attribute to the existence of money. And that's what this thread was supposed to be about...a world with no money, NOT a world without civilization.

[Serpent]

I do...if civilization is nothing more than the ability to write and therefore keep records, build upon information and add some culture of literature and poetry, then everything that you have ascribed to civilization is false.

If that were all that civilization is. But it's not.
The need to keep records comes from some new aspect of social organization that didn't exist when people were content to chronicle their history in oral tradition.
Building upon information is not exclusive to civilized society; it is the nature of all intelligence.
Culture and poetry long predate civilization. What changes is that artists and poets become professional specialists, singing for their supper, rather than for joy.

Everything that you have attributed to civilization, I attribute to the existence of money. And that's what this thread was supposed to be about...a world with no money, NOT a world without civilization.

The concept of money is so integrated with all the major aspects of civilization that we can't remove money without collapsing the system. I don't see how money can be removed from the human landscape unless we restructure civilization. To do that, first, we must understand how it works, and what alternative structures might work better.