Cashless Society

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Maybe the future is a civil war of people against the system. It will be fought with modern technology....maybe even mostly fought virtually.

I think there will be plenty of work for hackers - for those who wish to escape and/or hack the system. Some will figure out that the tools they use to enforce the system can be used against the system itself.

Look at Anonymous and WikiLeaks. It's already here.

It is a possible danger of Democratic Socialism; or what some may refer to as "mob rule".


Yes, but it has the potential to be worse than it is.


I don't accept the generalization that poor people are lazy, however, there are some poor people who are lazy, and yes, there are some rich people who are lazy too.

Who would invest in a country that's at war with itself? That's why corrupt economic institutions and policies have been erected, so that civil unrest is taken care of by invasion of privacy. We're seeing it now with the introduction of privitization of police in the U.K. Who knows, maybe Ford will give these guys their green cars again so they can show up at people's work place and shock them in the cafateria while everyone watches.

Poor folks cannot afford to be lazy. Rich folks can.

Size does make a difference, especially the size of one's bank account and portfolio.

ruveyn

I agree, those with small bank accounts can't afford to "coast" even when it's the most difficult to raise income.

Yes, I can see that connection now that I think about it. It's happening in the US as well.

Well said and that is exactly why Our Masters will phase out physical fiat and establish a 100% electronic system of 'credits' if you will. This will transpire on or before the Singularity. I believe before the Singularity.

Btw, slavery need not 'return' as it has been the continuous portion of the masses since the dawn of civilization. We are all slaves and will be until death.

you think lack of growth is a possible danger? what i was trying to get at was the reason as to why you think a lack of growth makes a system bad since perpetual growth isn't a prerequisite of socialism in the way that it is with capitalism. indeed the notion of perpetual growth pushing up the standard of living that is used to excuse the excesses of capitalism would be unnecessary under a pure socialist system, where wealth is equally distributed and sustainability is be the ideal.




indeed, yes.



perhaps we need to look at the motivations, or lack thereof, of laziness? under capitalism, the idle rich can afford to be lazy, and perhaps slogging out one's guts for a fraction of the value of one's labour would rather encourage the poor to be lazy and carry out the minimum work required of them, leaving a middle ground of those for whom laziness is mitigated by a dream of upward mobility and increasing comfort, perhaps with the ultimate view of becoming lazy? i'm generalising, of course.

Where does Plato say that in -The Republic-? Please quote verse from any professional translation from the Greek or from a vetted Greek manuscript.

ruveyn

I understand your point. But just as an example, putting aside whatever may be unethical about the two tech giants Apple and Microsoft, would it be possible for that level of entrepreneurship, investment, and innovation under Democratic Socialism for these two corporations to exist?

side note: While I greatly appreciate the innovation that Steve Jobs has given us, I can't ignore what we know about Apple's manufacturing practices, so this is not a perfect example. (or rather, it is an example of Capitalism with exploitation)

Capitalism with unfettered growth isn't good either - it leads to boom-and-bust cycles and manufacturing exploitation, while Democratic Socialism is planned growth, so it's more steady, but has the potential to stagnate.

Would you agree?

I don't claim to have all of the answers or the correct answers. I like to explore other opinions and knowledge to understand more than one side of an argument (argument as in "examples, point of view, and opinion" not argument as in "dispute").

I'm going to open a huge can of worms by advocating a steady state economy (something which I've been contemplating starting a thread on). Growth is not sustainable in perpetuity because we live on a planet with finite resources and I'm unconvinced that commercialization of space will be able to sustainably provide more to the planet's surface. So, although there could be growth in space, Earth itself will almost certainly eventually assume a steady-state economy: either we do so voluntarily or society collapses.

Capitalism in its current form can not work in a steady state economy: we need some sort of corporatist form of government regulation (ideally in the interest of everyone, and not just the interest of the corporations) at the very least, and perhaps full scale socialism. So I do not see stagnation as a risk of democratic socialism, but as a benefit. That said, I just want the size of the economy to cease growing (eventually, once the developing world is developed), not the contents. I'm all for innovation within the constraints of absence of growth. Perhaps there is a risk that democratic socialism wouldn't allow for that, so that is something which must be considered.

i hear this argument quite a lot, but i don't buy into it at all. on several counts. firstly, at certain points in c20 russia were technologically ahead of the west in certain areas, with no market capitalism competition to gee on innovation. secondly, even were this point you make valid, and i don't think it is, is it worth having massive inequality simply that a small percentage of the population can live a more technologically advanced lifestyle? i don't think so.



exploitation is inherent in capitalism. perhaps you provide an example in which it is blatantly obvious, though.



i agree with the poster who posted after you. i think sustainability is the way. perpetual growth is not sustainable.

there are other factors i'll elucidate as well, that i will try and get back to the thread and bring up later.



completely agreed, even given that i can come across as rather inflexible in my points of view at times, which is ironically far from the case.

at last, some sense! completely agree with this...



though perhaps not so much with this.

I agree with you but for one thing: yearly growth is not only dependent on growth of total throughput, but also on efficiency. By advances in efficient use of ressources, there could be growth without increasing the toll on the planet, and without its being less sustainable. In the long run, it would, of course tend for an asymptote, but still increase.

Watch Dwolla and see how well their system takes off. If it catches on commercially and gets to be a really big and practical thing - it may have a future and we may have a significantly currency 'less' system (albeit I don't think we'll ever be fully free of it). If its stays kind of niche and B2B more than anything; well, it has a place but its unlikely to supplant printed currency.

Well, yes, we could get ever closer to 100% efficiency, but we're talking major diminishing returns here. Eventually you'd be at the point where any increase in efficiency would be so negligible that the economy effectively does not grow.