Global warming denialist dupe analogy: What approximate GNP would we have using no money (barter only)?

Question

And if we would be considerably poorer if we had to run the whole economy without using money, does that mean inflation is a leftist moneyist hoax?

Answer 1

I think you should give Trevor more credit as the GDP and the Economy are left to the persons definition of the terms.

A story went around during the dirty thirties of a travelling salesman who stops in a small destitute town and goes to the local hotel,saying he wants the best room they have and lays a $100 bill on the counter.But he wants to look at the room first, as soon as he leaves to look at the room the hotel owner grabs the $100 and runs down the street to pay the butcher that gave him credit, the butcher runs to pay the farmer who has supplied him ,the farmer pays the feed supplier,who in turn pays the local prostitute who in turn pays for her room at the hotel.When the travelling salesman comes down he picks up the $100 and lights his cigar with it and explains that after all it is counterfeit.

An economy and thus the GNP need to be defined better than they have been

Answer 2

If we were to abolish the use of currency on a nationwide basis, the Gross National Product would be zero, as it is a measure of cash flow.



With a currency-free economy, we have to redefine what it means to be "poor". If the barter system succeeds in most of the public being able to obtain most of its needs, maybe fewer people would be "poor" under that economy than the current one.



Some people believe that currency (as well as debt and inflation) are all imaginary, and it's true if you think about it. The planet itself does not have a currency or a financial economy. These are all things humans developed, or "made up." Our incomes, savings and debts are usually just numbers in a computer. With our flexible treasury system that can arbitrarily flood the market with more currency (and drive up inflation), it's increasingly difficult to think of money as a real thing. You might enjoy the philosophies of Daniel Suelo, one of the many who have decided to give up the use of currency. You can see his blog here: http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/



As for the greenhouse gas question, you may actually be asking what the temperature would be at the pre-industrial-revolution level of greenhouse gases. A certain amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is completely natural without human interference. The problem lies with the runaway consequences of unnatural, human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.



Without any greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (this has never been the case), "the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C)."



Human-caused greenhouse gas contributions have caused the mean global temperature to rise almost one degree celcius (0.74), which doesn't sound like much but has huge implications.

Answer 3

Interesting question. If we dispensed with all money and were reduced to bartering then the GNP would probably not be affected. After all, money is nothing more than a convenient substitute for bartering – that’s how it came into existence.



Historically all trading was done through the process of bartering, but this has inherent problems. What would happen if you had a cow to trade and were looking to acquire some fish, doing a straight swap wouldn’t be a good deal as you’d need an awful lot of fish to equal the value of one cow. You could balance the deal by cutting the cow up and trading just a part of the cow for the fish – but then you’d have a dead cow.



So instead the idea of a nominal currency was born and throughout history all sorts of things have been used as currency such as animal hides, salt (that’s where the word salary comes from) and corn. Now it’s much easier to trade. You can offer the fish-seller one animal hide in return for the fish, he can then buy your cow for ten hides. After the bartering is done, you have your fish and nine more hides than you started with - which you can then exchange for other goods.



In order to avoid dragging sacks of corn or piles of animal hides around (or whatever the commodity was), tokens were introduced, these were the first coins; one coin for example might be worth one sack of corn and whoever had the coin could exchange it for good and services to the value of a sack of corn.



In time some lucky people amassed huge piles of these coins and it wasn’t practical for them to carry them around. Instead they would lodge the coins with a trustworthy person who would write a note saying that they were holding X number of coins and would return them on production of the note. The note itself then became currency and could be given in return for goods and services, the bearer of the note knowing that they could exchange it for the coins whenever they wanted. It’s from these humble beginnings that we have the current system of banknotes.



In fact, money itself has no value per-se. A banknote is nothing more than a promissory note – a kind of IOU. It’s a promise that the issuer makes that allows the holder of the note to demand payment (as per the face value) when the note is surrendered.



Today many currencies are backed by gold and so, in effect, the banknote in your pocket is a promise to give you an amount of gold equivalent to the value of the note as and when you demand it.



Essentially then, when you buy something with money you’re actually bartering, albeit in a convenient form. There’s actually nothing to stop you renegotiating the value of the money you have. You could for example demand realisation of your banknotes and the issuer (normally a bank) would offer you an equivalent amount of gold, you could reject their offer and demand more gold; but given that they’d be working to a fixed exchange rate you’d be unlikely to succeed.



EDIT: As per the reference to the “immediately preceding question in this category”, I’ve previously answered that so won’t reiterate the details here.

Answer 4

this question is only relevant in a capitalist Society, as soon as you take away money there is no profit therefore no growth. We are brought up to believe we must compete for everything we need as there is not enough, this belief is needed for a healthy Commercial world but is not true, if you have all you need why do you need to grow, this suggests that you need yet more to be happy a concept only found in capitalism, as we wouldn't be in a capitalist Society no one would think that way and this question would become irrelevant.

Answer 5

HUH? Could you form a question that makes any sense, please!