I think to give your children money for helping you is a very bad idea but more an american thing, I guess. You should teach your kids that helping is about caring for others. Its called solidarity.
I think to give your children money for helping you is a very bad idea but more an american thing, I guess. You should teach your kids that helping is about caring for others. Its called solidarity.
Please don't assume we don't do both. Helping others as part of a community is certainly important. Providing value without any token for who provided what usually ends up not working. Even in gift economies people keep mental ledgers of value exchange. Using a token like money makes everything transparent and that's important. Countries with the most economic freedom often have very high well-being.
Money is not evil.
Money can be a token for keeping track of who has helped the most people.
"Providing value without any token for who provided what usually ends up not working."
It needs people with high moral standards to make it work. Also tokens do not work when the culture of a society is corrupted. Money than will be made by creating negative value -- for example selling drugs, creating weapons of mass destruction, or speculating on commodities like wheat -- that harms society as a whole. First must be moral values and these only originate from understanding the concept of solidarity -- a tokenization alienates further from this concept, that is why I think it is not good to teach kids in this way. Especially when this money represents a corrupted society. Sorry for being so harsh, but this is my opinion.
I understand, but I don't agree with your opinions based on my understanding of history, economics (a proxy for human psychology), and human well-being.
I don't see "selling drugs" as evil. All chemicals we put in our body (including food) could be called "drugs". It's a false evil pushed by nation state governments for control. Some drugs which are "legal" in the medical community and terribly dangerous (such as opioids) while others are safe by considered schedule 1 narcotics (which is just silly).
Governments create weapons of mass destruction, not free markets.
As for speculating on commodities, that's an interesting example. I see the value of creating open pricing markets to stabilize price and risk. What I also see is manipulated currency through fiat and fractional reserve lending along with a corrupt investor system in wall street that takes what could be beneficial for farmers and customers and creates massively distorted markets which are harmful. Governments try to "regulate" this by with regulatory capture and revolving door politics, this becomes just another layer of control backed by a monopoly on violent force.
From my perspective, you're looking at the systems caused by governments and the myth of authority and blaming them on core concepts like money. If money was allowed to operate as originally intended (a token of value), it would not case all the harm you're describing.
"Governments create weapons of mass destruction, not free markets."
See, it is not about government vs. free market. The concept of a free market is utopian as socialism is, it never existed. And if it would exist, you would not want it because it would mean anarchy, and you and your family would not go through anarchy unharmed (under the condition that people are selfish). There is a reason why governments exist. Therefore, I cannot understand this government vs. free market argument. It is for me more a reflection of the deep conditioning in american culture, that the market is somehting religious that does not fail and societal structures -- as governments -- are seen as something unnatural.
Weapons of mass destruction are build by private companies. If there would not be a US-government that would buy these weapons there would be other governments. There would be always a government, even if it calls itself a corporation. Because the directors boards of corporations are nothing else as small governments -- and not even democratic ones.
Further, I do not see selling drugs as evil -- because for me there is no good or evil. I see it as a waste of human potential. When you think in economic terms, selling drugs reduces the overall welfare, because people get ruined and all the capital invested in them evaporates.
"From my perspective, you're looking at the systems caused by governments"
No. The corrupted system we are living in is caused by normal market mechanisms -- emergence of oligopolies and monopolies. These can only be smashed by governments (or better said, by the society, aggregating their power to destroy parasitic structures that decrease the overall welfare).
I was not blaming anything on money. I only said that money acts as a mirror. If kids do not understand, what the mirror reflects, it is not good for the society. This mirror these days reflect no societal value anymore, that was the point. Overall the concept of solidarity is more important, because teaching solidarity leads to a society that has higher moral standards and will not corrupt in the way a society will, that is too much focused on tokens and loses the concept behind them.
I hope you get a chance to read through my post on anarchy which I linked to in my previous comment. I have a completely different world view from you about that word. If you're interested in understanding more about this beyond what I've written there, I can provide multiple books, lectures, etc, but my hunch is that would all be a bit much for you at this point.
Maybe instead we'll just continue building a voluntary society without violent government and when it's done you can see it for yourself to believe it. :)
Thank you very much, you are very kind! :-)
"I have a completely different world view from you about that word." I know, I come from a complete different point of view than the steemit community originates from. I have lived in a socialist state and it was way better than everything that capitalist society have ever reached yet. This is why I have not also a different idea about what free market economies are but also what anarchy is. For me the manifestation of anarcho capitalism or properiterian anarchism is the first step in a transformation of american society to become fascist. There were also concepts of anarcho-nationalism in Italy in the 1920s which transformed into fascism. The problem with american thinking is the same as every culture goes through, before groundbreaking paradigm shifts. Cultures increase their levels of ideological radicalization. This ideological radicalization is driven by the ideas that are the foundations of the thinking. As Germany has to go through this hurtfull process, also the US have to go through this.
There are many lies about how real existing socialism really was, therefore I am always a bit sceptical about some anarcho capitalist approaches -- also because capitalism and anarchy contradict each other. Because to extract capital from others (in the way capital was defined by Marx) is a complete contradiction to anarchy. However, I will always support the competition of ideas -- and perhaps I am wrong because lack of knowledge as we all are. Have a great day!
Which country did you live in, if you don't mind me asking? Often the meme that gets spread around is people building rafts out of trash to try and escape socialist countries (and the dictator regimes that are usually created by them). Your points are accurate about the dangers of nationalism and the concerns over the spread of fascism. Anarchy means "without rulers" and real anarcho-capitalists I interact with want nothing to do with nationalism or anything that would create a ruler. Fascism, from my understanding, requires the use of force provided by the government monopoly on force. Modern anarcho capitalists respect the NAP (non-aggression principle) and reject all actions which would violate it. A simple 8 minute video explains why property is valid and an extension of owning myself in the past.
I really appreciate how you are open to opposing ideas. I think that is a beautiful thing. I've spent many, many hours in the ancom vs. ancap Facebook debate group to form my current views, but I too am open to adjusting them or being flat out wrong.
I come from the former GDR. The GDR, however, was one of the flagships of the eastern bloc and was more wealthy than its "brotherstates". Therefore, perhaps, the GDR can be seen not as the rule but more as an exception. And it is true, that the GDR was not as wealthy as its western neighbor (which was also a flagship, however, for capitalism). Nonetheless, this is not globally true, as there were no unemployed in the GDR -- therefore, when you aggregate the wealth compared with heavily unequal societies all taken together more people were satisfied. Nobody has had these existential fears that are nowadays omnipresent. The often cited Stasi was no issue at all that has played any role in the normal life, compared to what the NSA and CIA did the Stasi was a joke. People also talked about what they did not wanted in the leadership, there was no constant censorship like it is displayed in fictional novels like 1984. However, there also was not free speech -- which I think was the biggest problem -- however, look at germany nowadays there also is no free speech. People even get fired when they attend the wrong demonstration or write the wrong thing in "social" media. The censorship in the GDR was the same as nowadays -- it was self censorship. However, the biggest difference between the society we live in and the socialist society that died was the different reason for censorship. Yes, censorship is bad, but it makes a difference if the whole community tries to build something, that could ake the world a better place or you got censored if you criticise the powerfull selfish billionaires of a cleptocracy that has no other goal than to extract every bit of energy out of you. In the GDR there were no rich people, that use you for their gain, it was a society that has had a common goal with largely equal people. Another common misunderstanding is what has happend with the fall of the berlin wall -- the people who have gone to the streets never wanted capitalism, we wanted a socialist society in which something changes (to many old people have had power) and with less censorship. But gobarchev has sold us like everyone, the movement was captured by western intelligence and the GDR was annexed by western germany. The western intelligence agencies have build networks of fascists -- as the have always done -- to suppress every disconsent with the strong harm they have put on us and our economy. Western firms bought whole industrial parks for 1 Mark and destroyed them, to destroy competition. The GDR was 10th strongest industrial nation and the debt was not even comparable to that of western countries. With heavily manipulating the oil price by Ronald Reagan, with the Plunge Protection Team, and building the american credit potemkin economy the west has triumphed about the east. And TINA emerged -- not taking the absolute different starting points (the soviet union that hardly had any industry before Stalin and the GDR that was completely destroyed by world war II and everything that worked was dismantled by the soviet union followed by a massive brain drain). Than when the east bloc collapsed western capitalism was free to show its true face and must not wear the mask anymore to act as it will help even ordinary people. So eastern germans arrived in a society that has no solidarity, high unemployement and no goal for mankind that it is worth fighting for and everything they have learned in their politcal economy courses in university turned out as true -- albeit everyone believed before this was all government propaganda and capitalism is not as bad as propagated.
I think it is essential to have a discussion as civilized creatures that do not fight each other about different interpretations and differences in knowledge. I think this is the great think about this community, that everybody seems to be open. I more like someone who has a different opinion and is open to other peoples opinions than somebody who shares my opinion but is highly intolerant.