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The point is that money is a social power, the power as Adam Smith put it
to
command the labour of others. As such this power of command derives from
the
sovereign -- either the actual monarch in the case of a country like
Britain,
or from the Republic in the case of the Dollar. The power is delegated to
who ever holds the money, in a way similar to the way the power of the
sovereign
was delegated to dukes and barons under feudalism. Bill Gates, is in this
sense a modern prince.
What you are talking about is a system of barter, which, would lack the
generality
of money, and lack also its coercive power.
Paul Cockshott
Dept of Computing Science
University of Glasgow
+44 141 330 1629
www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/ <http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/%7Ewpc/reports/>
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list-en oekonux.org on behalf of Samuel Rose
Sent: Mon 7/14/2008 9:31 PM
To: list-en oekonux.org
Subject: Re: Money as a dominant social relation (was: Re: [ox-en] There is
no such thing like "peer money")
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[1 text/plain]
In the case of what we are talking about in the orginal subject of the
email
("peer money" ) I am talking about anything that is recognized by other
people as a subsitute for value of physical items, whether issued by a
state
or not.
In fact, your example of a definition of "money" as being something that
must orignate with a state cofirms that there is such a thing as "peer
money", which I would call money that does not orginate with a
self-declared
state.
The shells of Catal Huyuk are very similar in this regard to the peer
currncy of today. Is it "money"? To me this definition of "state money"
really, really doesn't matter and the only distinction worth not to me is
state vs. non-state currency.
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Paul Cockshott <wpc dcs.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
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Depends what you mean by money.
If you mean coinage or banknotes and all that follows, these have a clear
origin with Lydia in the west in the 8th C bc and with the spade and hoe
tokens
issued by the chinese empire.
The origin of money is closely linked with state finance. It is a myth
that
it originates with barter.
Inghams book 'The Nature of Money' gives a good account, see also the
work
of the economist Randall Wray.
A summary is in
http://pavlina-tcherneva.net/papers/Arestis-Sawyer-Chapter%2005.pdf
Paul Cockshott
Dept of Computing Science
University of Glasgow
+44 141 330 1629
www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/<http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/%7Ewpc/reports/><
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/%7Ewpc/reports/>
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list-en oekonux.org on behalf of Samuel Rose
Sent: Sun 7/13/2008 5:56 PM
To: list-en oekonux.org
Subject: Re: Money as a dominant social relation (was: Re: [ox-en] There
is
no such thing like "peer money")
[Converted from multipart/alternative]
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Christian,
While I agree with your point, I probably should clarify mine to state
that
where human civilization has emerged, money of some form has quite often
if
not usually emerged. Some colleagues of mine that are Archaeologists
argue
that "human civilization" (ie humans living in towns with markets etc)
goes
back as far as 10,000 years. This includes recent work that a friend has
done on the very earliest known Egyptian civilizations, plus work on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk where things like
obsidian and shells were used for trade tokens, etc.
it's a technology of convenience. I do agree with you that it hasn't
emerged
universally (until recent times).
I agree that it wasn't really dominant until 300-500 years ago, this is
when
in the West the paradigm of people "expressing self for materialistic
gain"
(rf Clare W Graves) really started to emerge on a wide scale.
So, the point that people once used money in ways that did not
over-extend
the medium of money proves the point that money is not always inherently
in
and of itself, but that it is the assumptions people have about money,
and
their shared understanding of how it is best used that is the problem.
Once again, I will re-suggest that for p2p systems, that money can be
pushed
out to the periphery of systems (which is basically what is already
happening).
I do agree that humans could theoretically live without money. But, I
also
contend that it is unlikely that humans will do so in our lifetimes (as I
stated previously).
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Christian Siefkes <
christian siefkes.net>
wrote:
Samuel Rose wrote:
Money has been around for at least ten thousand years or more among
humans.
Money has naturally emerged among almost every culture that ever
existed.
When we talk about money, we should remember that money as a _dominant
social relation_ is a fairly new phenomenon. In most cultures, money
did
not
play a very important role, since most economy relations where based on
direct dependency (slaves producing for their master, serfs producing
for
their feudal lord etc.) and/or on direct, money-less cooperation in
small
groups (subsistence production in tribes, farmer families, or serf
families--except for the parts that went to the lord and the church).
Most production took place for direct consumption by the producers
community
(subsistence) and/or their masters (direct dependency). Possibly
surplusses
(not needed for other purposes) were exchanged, but production _for
exchange_ was rare and existed mainly "at the fringes of society", as
Marx
puts it.
Money only became a dominant social relation when production _for
exchange_,
production with the explicit purpose of getting money, became the norm
rather than an exception. That happened only about 500-300 years ago,
with
the emergence of capitalism.
Sadly, I don't know of any good English-language references to these
developments--if anybody can fill them in, I would be grateful. (Maybe
Raoul
Victor, who has studied so closely the transition from feudalism to
capitalism?)
Also, I believe that there have been many cultures who didn't know
money
at
all, though they might have used different systems that might seem
similar
to, but cannot be considered money since they served a different
purpose,
such as the Kula system [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kula_ring].
(Wikipedia
writes: "The Kula exchange system can be viewed as reinforcing status
and
authority distinctions".) That Kula cannot be considered money has been
pointed out before by Gregers Petersen, if I remember correctly.
So, let's not be rash about the role of money. Electricity has been
with
us
for millions of years (think of lightning), but the use of electricity
as
a
major source of energy is rather new.
Best regards
Christian
--
|-------- Dr. Christian Siefkes ---------
christian siefkes.net---------
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/ | Blog:
http://www.keimform.de/
| Peer Production in the Physical World:
http://peerconomy.org/
|------------------------------------------ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8
--
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
-- Rich Kulawiec
--
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
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--
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
AIM: Str9960
Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrose
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com/services
Related Sites/Blogs/Projects:
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Information Filtering:
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