this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Are you familiar with the bartering system? Rather than money, you would judge the value of the object by how much you needed it. If you really wanted the avocados, you would ask the person who had avocados what they would trade. If you didn't have what they wanted, you can bargain or try someone else who has avocados who wants what you currently have.
Basically, a money less society goes back to a very simplified society. You won't be able to get everything you want and will have to, sometimes, settle for what you currently have. It also gives you the ability to trade your skills.
So, you go back to the avocado trader and tell them that you'll build an avocado shed for them in exchange for a crate of avocados. You both negotiate, exchange and then move on.
It's more work because you have seized the means of production by making things yourself in order to trade, rather than off shoring to someone else who is likely not getting paid at all. This is why the wealthy absolutely don't want this system because it's more work for them, while in the lower class it'll give more control back. When balancing, there will always be people who lose and people who gain.
Hey so the barter system never really existed, not in any real way. There were absolutely communal living pockets, like peasant villages in Russia, but barter would not work as a basis for a socialist society. You seem to have some interest in this stuff, so I think you should read Marx and Engels, and work your way through some of their economic stuff till you can work through Capital. Its a fucking fantastic book, but its pretty difficult, especially solo. Lots of great resources out there though, like David Harvey's lectures and the Reading Capital With Comrades podcast. But start with Socialism: Utopian and Scientific which will prepare you for their analytical style, then read Wage Labor and Capital, or Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Sorry if you're already familiar with some of this work but I figured from reading your comment that this stuff might still be new to you.
It sucks we were taught about the barter system in school, but that's just some shit Adam Smith made up, he didn't have any historical or material basis for it. Yet they still teach it as part of the liberal illusions about capital and private property.