Today we will do a thought experiment, a silly one but bear with me. Try this at home kids, no need to be a trained professional. Okay, just imagine that everything as is just as it is now but without money. It is as if this hypothetical world is a movie on DVD and we’ve press pause and erased the concept of money from the heads of all the actors in this movie. After we press the play button things will start to go to hell in a hand basket but we’ll just focus on how it is for now, a pristine frozen slice of time.
Nobody has any fiscal debts. In fact anything to do with money has become obsolete, a waste of resources: banks, bankers, tax, accountants, notes, coins, credit cards, cheque books, ATMs, poker machines, bookies, insurance companies, parking meters, the national treasurer, speeding fines, the words expensive and cheap, that peptic ulcer induced by your debts, price tags, embezzlement charges, profit motive, laws associated with money and so on. I implore you to think of more because you probably never realised just how much out there exists purely and directly due to the concept of money.
Now press play. A lot of people are now feeling very silly and confused.
A man looks down at the round pieces of metal and rectangular pieces of paper in his hand then looks up at the checkout chick he was about to give them to. “What are these?” he wonders he put the strange objects back in his pocket so he can inspect them later. Then he walks out of the store with groceries in hand without paying. What’s paying?
The checkout chick looks at the cash register. She knows how to use it but has no idea what its contents are for or what the number on the display represent. She’s been on her feet all day and she’s tired, she hates her job (which doesn’t seem to have a purpose) and she no longer has any bills to pay. Her landlord is no longer after her rent money. Finding herself without any real reason for being there she goes home. Maybe she’ll take up photography, a pastime she’s alway enjoyed but never had much time for. Her boss, the storeowner, doesn’t miss her; his job is to supply food to people, someone has got to do that and besides he loves his job (a rarity in retail).
A prostitute finds herself in a somewhat compromising position with a man she doesn't know and isn’t attracted to. Why is she doing this? The man is wondering how he got so lucky a split second before he is abruptly pushed off the bed.
This sort of thing is happening all around this hypothetical world. Some people still find a reason to do what they do and some don’t. Some have NO reason to do what they do such as the bankers(I find it amazing how many people are there just to support the system). The supply of goods and services drops accordingly. Some things however may continue as normal out of necessity.
All these things are trivial compared to what would happen to the power balance of the world. No longer is a countries fiscal situation a measure of its power. When people no longer have a financial hold over others they might resort to other means of control such as violence or withholding vital resources. If country is resource rich but money poor they could gain power by withholding their resources. This is where I suspect things start to go down hill, when people start having thoughts like “Why should I share my (or my country’s) resources with you?” or “if you don’t share your resources with me I’m going to take it by force” (recent history has shown that the latter happens anyway).
Next week we take a step back from this experiment, analyse the potential consequences and perhaps try to fill in the gaps that money has left.