well what would you replace with cost and currency?
why would someone produce something if they don't get anything in return for it?

What the price mechanism does is communicate to producers what is in demand and what is in surplus. Thus they ensure that these imbalances are brought into balance once more, and therefore that people spend their time in the most useful way possible.

How, without a price mechanism, do you propose that we ensure that the correct tonnage of iron ore is produced every year in order to make everyone's cutlery sets?

@Ghost: Why wouldn't enough be produced? Also, I have a new way to make sure people work in my system: People get credits for working. If they have enough credits, they are able to get things. This differs from currency because you don't actually spend the credits. You keep them after you get something. You just have to have a certain amount to obtain things.

@Ghost: I think I misread your question. Anyway, we'd ensure enough is preodeced by perhaps taking orders before hand, so that enough will be mined out of the ground.

preodeced=produced

Because nobody knows how much is enough until the price goes up.

Your credits: how many things are people allowed to get? How many credits do they get for certain work? How many credits do you need to get things? Who decides? How do they decide? How do young people get enough credits and yet middle-aged people not have enough without working?

Conservative Man, taking orders beforehand for everything is wildly impractical. I didn't know that my alarm clock was going to need replacing next week, or that my milk was going to go sour... how could I pre-order for those things that I didn't know I would have to buy?

I'm with Ghost on this one. The price mechanism is necessary keep the balance between surplus and shortages.

Also, how do you manage 7 billion people making pre-orders for *everything* they are going to buy?

price and value is skewed in a capitalist society - how can a footballer be worth millions of pounds? How can a footballer be paid thousands of pounds a week? Only because that is what someone is willing to pay. Whether that is fair or valuable is a totally different question.

"price and value is skewed in a capitalist society - how can a footballer be worth millions of pounds? How can a footballer be paid thousands of pounds a week? Only because that is what someone is willing to pay. Whether that is fair or valuable is a totally different question."

Because he provides entertainment to millions of people on a regular basis. People would rather watch Manchester United than a local conference team. I disagree with them, poor-quality football is way more fun imo, but there we go.

It isn't that "someone" is willing to pay that much for them, but that a million people are willing to pay a millionth of that much for them.

what is currently wrong with society that you think would be fixed by removing currency from it?

@CM "Just do away with the concept of cost, the concept of currency."
What would you replace them with?

Everything which is produced has a cost: materials, time, knowledge, whatever. You cannot do away with that. Money is simply one way of quantifying them.

Currency, that is money, is normally attributed with four main functions: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and, occasionally, a standard of deferred payment. How the hell do your "credits" differ?

@Hammac "price and value is skewed in a capitalist society"
Skewed from what? Value is what individuals attribute to something; if potential buyer & seller value something at/about the same then a deal may be done, which is the price.

As far as pre-ordering:
How would I have pre-ordered a I-phone, I-pod, car, train, air conditioner, etc. They didn't exist. How would your system account form people creating new technology and products if these had to be pre-ordered? I want to pre-order my galactic battle cruiser. How long until I get it?

@Ghost - Only somethings would need to be pre-ordered. The big things. Minor things would not need to be preordered.

@Diplomat: My credits are not a medium of exchange, a store of value, or a standard of deferred payment. I'm not even sure if they are a unit of account. All the credits do is give you authorization to buy things.

@Ghost again:An example of how you earn credits would be: 3 credits per hour for hard physical labor, 2 credits per hour for easy physical labor or non-physical labor, 1 credit per hour for an easy job.

@LordVipor: The exploitation in Capitalism. This system is the only alternative that does not involve government, and I happen to be an anarchist.

@Czech - If it's a small thing being invented, there's no need to preorder it. If it's a large thing, (like the "battle cruiser") you can preorder it once it's invented.

"@Ghost - Only somethings would need to be pre-ordered. The big things. Minor things would not need to be preordered."

Why not? How do we magically produce the right amount of bread then?

How do we produce the right amount now, before we know how people will react to the price change?

"@Ghost again:An example of how you earn credits would be: 3 credits per hour for hard physical labor, 2 credits per hour for easy physical labor or non-physical labor, 1 credit per hour for an easy job."

So how many do you need to buy things?

"@LordVipor: The exploitation in Capitalism. This system is the only alternative that does not involve government, and I happen to be an anarchist."

Nobody is exploited in capitalism. This couldn't ever happen without massive enforcement.

"How do we produce the right amount now, before we know how people will react to the price change?"

By having a price. If it is more than the cost of production, then more is made and until we reach a balance. If it is less, then we reduce production. What we do is measure- by the price- whether the right amount is being produced, and then adjust and adjust.

How do you propose to measure whether or not the current bread production is an optimal use of people's time?

@Ghost: Say, for example, 120 or so credits in the last month, and a certain proportion of that has to be of the hard labor variety.
And every worker is exploited in capitalism, no worker gets anything near equal to the product of his labor.

@Ghost: Well I say that we should measure what needs to be produced by how much was being previously distributed. Since there is no cost, the numbers would not fluctuate much.

Conservative Man is correct that "price" and "value" do not always mean the same thing.

The "credits" idea is interesting, but we need a lot more detail about how it would operate. Ghostmaker asks a very important question: "So how many [credits] do you need to buy things?"

Another important question is this: Who decides that hard labour is worth 3 credits? The state? The individual firm employing the labourer? Or what? How do they decide on the credit value of your work?

@Jamiet: It is decided before this system is implemented.

How the heck is "credits" different than money?

@LordVipor: As I explained above, you don't spend the credits, you just have to have a certain amount to have authorization to get things.

"@Ghost: Say, for example, 120 or so credits in the last month, and a certain proportion of that has to be of the hard labor variety."

So no full-time university education otherwise you don't get enough work in; scrawny inventors have to do hard labour; and everyone works one, one and-a-half full weeks every month, apparently. Bollocks

"And every worker is exploited in capitalism, no worker gets anything near equal to the product of his labor."

What the hell is "the product of his labour"? What does that even *mean*? The only objective measure of the value of some work done is the price others are willing to pay for it.

"@Ghost: Well I say that we should measure what needs to be produced by how much was being previously distributed. Since there is no cost, the numbers would not fluctuate much."

How on earth are you going to generate this information? What about seasonal fluctuations?

Secondly, there are two factors. Firstly, how much people are willing to consume, secondly, how much work must be put in to make it. Everyone would have flat-screen TVs if they were just free, but that would be inappropriate use of resources since the cost of making them is too high.

I'm going to be totally blunt: your system is just moronic. Every adjustment you make requires a central bureaucracy to manage it. It is the very essence of communism, with added shit for good measure.

Please, can I have Jamiet back to argue with?

I have to do something, I'll be back with a reply in about 45 minutes.