Resources=Money

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All currency in the world is derived from, and is a reflection of, our resources. Though I am not a historian or an economist by profession, this connection is obvious. In the past, bartering was the primary form of resource allocation, and perhaps still is, in an obfuscated form. We used to chop down trees to use the wood for fire, shelter, space, etc. Now we chop them down for various reasons, some reasons make sense, others do not. Im not sure what the purpose of this thread should be, though I hope we can relate it to our past, current, and future economic systems. Perhaps we may be able to derive some useful results.

There are other things than resources valued in money.

Das Kapital is a lengthy (boring) work on exactly that subject - money as a medium of exchange for real wealth. Most of it is not so controversial, although the labor theory of value is. Marx asserted that labor worth $X (the ability to transform raw materials to finished goods) was bought by capitalists, and sold for a greater amount; he saw this as the predatory extraction of 'surplus value' - as the old slogan goes, no one gets rich by working for someone else - you need lots of people working for you. Of course, Marx discounted the risk that a capitalist takes, or the idea that there should be a labor market where workers and employers haggle over who gets paid what.

Among many other things religion and banks create value by obligation. Relief of guilt and relief of obligation generates money payment. Our present financial crisis is due to the overvaluation of the latter.

This would basically make capitalism one giant pyramid scheme, where labor worth X was bought by the capitalist and sold for Y which is X plus whatever the capitalist decides to add on as profit. Marx's solution was simply to eliminate the capitalist, which proved easier said than done. In practice, the capitalist was simply replaced by the bureaucrat.

In reality, labor needs an organizer, somebody to organize the labor of many so as to produce something of value. Adam Smith defined a capitalist as one who was able to organize land, labor, and capital in such a way as to produce a superior finished product. Compensation for the capitalist is the essential dilemma, and the big problem with greed.

In modern America, the capitalist seems to think he's entitled to far more compensation that would reasonably be expected. How much is reasonable? For most of the 20th century, the average capitalist made between 25 and 40 times the wage of the bottom worker. Today it STARTS at around 275 times, and goes up to more than 500 times. The primary reason that wages have not increased is that the profits in increased productivity have not been passed on to the worker with the capitalist taking a rational cut, but have been completely taken (some might say stolen) by the capitalists, then spent on stuff like mansions and cars and yachts and planes. This has resulted in 400 Americans having more wealth that the bottom 150 million.

One sees that the big problem is not the capitalist per se, but rip roaring greed that causes him to cut wages while increasing his own salary. That's why we need strong social taboos against greed. In Japan, where such taboos are in place, the capitalist makes only 17 times the wage of the bottom worker. And life in Japan is far more expensive than life in the US.

When money is essentially a shared delusion with no physical limits upon its supply, it's easy for that to happen. All the "surplus" money that gets imagined into existence is monopolized by the social class with the political power to do the imagining.

i concur with the original post, although it didnt seem to have a point... the truth is, natural resources are becoming 'less' profitable.. if Hemp were more standardized, then our economy could be fixed 1000 times over.. it's so easy to grow and can produce many differen substances and materials, not to mention one of the healthiest things for your body, and can even replace meals (hemp seeds)..

Nature = not as controllable by government... machine + technology = better control, more profit......

*pshah!* like, Duhhh!

You hit the nail on the head there. Greed is the driving force in the US today.

Its the driving force of the whole wide World my friend.

No, that is a very fundamental mistake.
Heres a 1 hour+ animation that should set you right a little.LINKe

You believe that with out resources we would be here having this conversation?

Currency is just a form of credit. The values of the goods themselves are set by collective agreement between buyers and sellers. This agreement automatically arises when mass trading occurs. It is essentially bartering but the addition of a currency allows trading to occur much more efficiently.

The value of natural resources is set, at least in theory, by the same mechanism as every other product that can be bought or sold. If somebody suddenly came up with an extremely popular product that used cat dandruff, then cat dandruff would become a valuable natural resource.

In more general terms, is not money a symbolic representation of value? Resources by definition are things of value.

Take a look at Japan, an island nation among the richest in the world. The only resources they have are the people. They seem to do reasonably well.

Do not forget irrational forces as well. Far too many economists, professional students of economies, and amateur students and commentators still subscribe to the nonsensical "rational actor" in economies. Economies are not rational and they are not driven by "rational actors". Instead, they are a sum of the actions of actors who are only partially rational and often act in entirely irrational fashions.