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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

> nobody has ever been able to show how it is possible to run a "steady-state" economy

This is a non-argument. Before money was created, nobody had been able to show that a non-barter economy would work. Or capitalism for that matter. The fact that nobody has so far has figured out a way to make it work doesn't mean anything. The only thing of interest would be conclusive proof that it's impossible.

I'm fairly sure that at some point we need to move over to some sort of steady-state economy due to the scarcity problem [1]. I'm also fairly sure that the transition will happen in small steps and people will only notice afterwards. Some pieces are already being discussed and some have been tried, such as currencies with negative interest, basic income, ...

[1] The only other option being mass extinction. That's a bit meh, I don't feel like being part of that. I'll rather choose Star Trek :)

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Question: What is money?

And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt".

> And something existed before "money" was "created". It was and is called "debt".

The word you're looking for is "barter", not debt. Debt exists whether or not there is money.

yes. And this is why I was talking about "debt" and not "barter".

There is a pretty well accepted definition of money: It's an object or record that's accepted as a form of payment, often with very little value in itself. Early forms of money included shells, for example. Coins are an evolution, printed bank notes as well. The precursor to money is barter: I trade 5 goats for one cow, that I can then trade for a horse. The money equivalent is that I sell 5 goats for 10 money that I can use to buy the horse.

Debt is related to property and certainly related to money, since debts are nowadays kept track of in terms of money, but debt is not the precursor to money and certainly debt is not a requirement for a money-based system. It's like saying "before money was created, there were the sun, the moon and the stars".

Well strictly speaking, modern money is "debt" while originally money was a commodity such as gold.

Both types of money function in the same way, as a form of payment, but they differ significantly in implementation.

"but debt is not the precursor to money' There are people that would disagree. Actually already 100 years ago: http://www.ces.org.za/docs/The%20Credit%20Theoriy%20of%20Mon...

"and certainly debt is not a requirement for a money-based system." This is kind of true. You could run a trade based economy on pre 1750 level with' lets say gold or silver or sea shells as "money". But you CANT RUN A INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISTIC society without debt. At least nobody has ever been able to show that this is possible. We need growth, we need more energy. I am afraid this will not end well. Read the links I posted in this thread.

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