Scare City

[P3nT4gR4m]

If it weren't for scarcity and the ability to gather more monies would all these diseases be curable? Without profit would there be empty homes? Without ones and zeros floating from account to account would we have the technology to feed all these people?

The problem you describe could also be the cause of such surplus.

Would communists ever invented a computer? Even if they had what piss poor software would it have?   

Throughout most of history, it was not scarcity economics or capitalism which drove scientific innovation and invention. "Money" is merely a shorthand for "trade", not a shorthand for "Capitalism".

Can't get my head around what you mean by this. Care to spell out for the slow readers?

[Left]

Humans actually invent stuff because we can, methinks, because it's fun.

We are members of a toxic form of society that has prospered due in part to its destructiveness and opportunism. There are other forms, and some of them are thriving, but we choose not to see those because we're so stuck on WE'RE #1!

Yup

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If it weren't for scarcity and the ability to gather more monies would all these diseases be curable? Without profit would there be empty homes? Without ones and zeros floating from account to account would we have the technology to feed all these people?

The problem you describe could also be the cause of such surplus.

Would communists ever invented a computer? Even if they had what piss poor software would it have?   

Throughout most of history, it was not scarcity economics or capitalism which drove scientific innovation and invention. "Money" is merely a shorthand for "trade", not a shorthand for "Capitalism".

Can't get my head around what you mean by this. Care to spell out for the slow readers?

I'm not sure where to go with this... capitalism is an economic system, not the exchange of capital, if that makes sense?

[hirley0]

I'm not sure where to go with this... Smith M111
capitalism is | a recording of prices dP/dT
an economic system, | Not who begat who |OR who was slain by whom
not the exchange of capital, | not sure about this point.
if that makes sense? || 1/2¢ ||| bac2river crossings } if U can }} & ?/?

[LMNO]

If I understand Nigel/Hirley correctly, "money" is an agreed-upon surrogate for wealth, trancending the pure barter system.

Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy.

You don't need Capitalism in order to use money... although, can you have Capitalism without using money?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

You could have capitalism without money, but only until some asshole on wall street invented it.

Money is a way to "prove" you deserve to own the things you buy. In theory, you get money by virtue of being productive; therefore, if you have money it can be reasonably expected that you have contributed enough to society to warrant your ownership of whatever it is you're buying. This of course has nothing to do with capitalism, because money has functioned this way forever, and it works the same way under capitalism as under socialism or any other economic system.

Of all the economic systems I am familiar with, capitalism would probably be the easiest system under which to eliminate (or fundamentally change) money. Not that that would be a good thing. It's actually been done many times in the past - the "company store" model where you are paid not in universally recognized money but in credit which you can use to subsist on things the Company provides at a Company-endorsed outlet. It's still technically money in that it limits your consumption to a level justified by your labor, but it isn't really money because you're not free to use it to buy anything anywhere with it. Also you can't go to heaven, because you end up owing your soul to the company store. There's a song about that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If I understand Nigel/Hirley correctly, "money" is an agreed-upon surrogate for wealth, trancending the pure barter system.

Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy.

You don't need Capitalism in order to use money... although, can you have Capitalism without using money?

I prefer the definition in the Free Disctionary:

An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

"privately or corporately owned", "accumulation and reinvestment of profit, and "free market" are all key elements. "Free" meaning "unregulated", and in the minds of many capitalists, untaxed.