Why do we need Money?

As long as the other person has money, you would also be needing money. I just hope money is not the only thing people think about that’s important.

We don’t need it, contrary to what most of the people on this site will tell you.

Money, and let’s use taxes as an example, is an important source of income to fund infrastructure that benefits and supports citizens all over the country from power plants to water treatment facilities to highway services to education funding to dozens of other important things.

As far as the individual and family units, money is beneficial in paying bills, buying groceries, fueling up the family car(s), entertainment, and many other purposes.

@mammal. “We don’t need it, contrary to what most of the people on this site will tell you.” Wow. Really? What’s the alternative or what’s your preferred method of compensation for things being that money isn’t necessary?

We don’t need money, per se, but we do need a commonly agreed upon system of exchangeable value. To see the irrelevance of money itself, watch how it tends to change once the surrounding context changes.

Example: ever been in a natural disaster? Suddenly those things that had value pre-disaster are suddenly worthless, whereas what previously was a simple commodity suddenly has great exchangeable value. Think batteries, fresh water and gasoline. In later stages: firearms/ammunition, food and shelter. You’ve got cash? Who cares?

@mammal Of what value is it to make assumptions about the answers of others without supporting evidence and to provide no supporting evidence or reasoning for your own position?

PapsLeo’s provides an excellent answer.

For a society to forgo the need for some form of money, the society would have to eschew assigning value to material things. That seems like a fundamental change in human nature. It would also require giving up power, which after all is what money equates to. That also seems to me to require a fundamental change in human nature.

Excellent answers have already been provided. I’ll just point out that money in the form of currency is becoming outdated. I am confined to my home and keep little cash on hand (always keep a few dollars for emegencies or Girl Scout cookies). Yet thousands of dollars go “through my hands” via credit card numbers, PayPal accounts. bills set up for automatic payment against bank accounts or bills I pay on-line. Deposits are made electronically directly to my accounts, as well. These are just numbers that have a value assigned to them though actual money in the form of currency does not actually touch hands in most cases. See ya….wtf (my initials)
PS: Welcome to fluther @Shamone_Styles

@Marina & @Bluefreedom….That is the way of @mammal….tosses out an incendiary statement (usually anti-capitalism) and then runs and hides. Wait a minute…is that not the modus operandi of a troll?

Thank you all for answering my question. In my personal opinion I think everyones answers are interesting in their own way. I will now give you my opinion on the question at hand. This is really a two sided issue going on in the world right now even though most of us do not know it yet. In my opinion at some point the world will have 4 main currencies where they will try to have other countries merge there currency into one. Examples: The Euro, the Amero and so forth. When it all comes down to it all logically – there will come a time that money will be obsolete and all that will remain in my opinion will be computerized credits. (It may sound a little extreme but again this is just my opinion of things to come.) What if we could actually get rid of the need for placing a price tag on every thing? As human beings we have all been blessed with the ability to create.
If money was not in such high demand today, if we did not have to be so selfish or wanting such things as power over things that we place value on. We would probably do alright with all the new advances in technology. We right now have the resources to keep our planet powered for centuries to come yet the old ways are holding us back because of greed. It’s because of greed that we need gas instead of sunlight to power our vehicles. It’s because of some ones greed that has you paying electricity bills from a machine being kept running in your city, when we have the technology to harness this same power from our own ocean through sea waves or by those windmill like things that can make electricity. Instead of wanting payment for everything why can we not just exchange knowledge to make our children’s children smarter? So here comes the next issue – if this was to happen, what would we be working for? Maybe it could be for our own evolution? Who would we be working for? (Ourselves) Who would benefit – (Everyone). There would be no reason to steal from each other if we all had the same thing. If there is one thing I think we may all agree on is that greed has a long history which has messed up our world and we as a whole allow money to take such a part in our lives that we may be too blinded by its value to see what life would be like with out it.

Simply stated, we need money because no one has come up with a better alternative yet.

Greed will still exist even when we evolve past the need for an artificial currency so that’s a problem not attached to money.

Money is like garage space, you never have enough. Money is technically stored energy, or stored work, or even stored sustenance. Since the barter system is not fucntional in all ways, we need something to replace it. If a person could live off the grid, raise their own food, pump their own water and create their own energy to drive their machines, money would become irrelevant. Unfortunately, those things were possible a couple hundred years ago. Nowadays, not so much.

Beause money is better than poverty.
if only for financial reasons.

I think we are making a terrible mistake if we allow ourselves to become completely dependent on things that plug in. Remember what’s behind the power that makes them run and how terribly fragile it is. I would never want all the transferable resources I have to exist only in electronic form.

@Shamone_Styles: You’re confusing the desire for stuff with the desire for money. Money is just the means of exchange; if we did not have money, we would quickly invent it, because money is a hell of a lot easier as a basis for commerce when more than two people are involved. And it’s not money that forces us to fix a price on things—it’s the fact that people want things, and it’s still a price, whether the price is $20 in currency or a dozen eggs a week for the next two months in barter.

Your question seems to blame money for things like allocations of government resources that you do not agree with, and your comment seems to blame money for greed. Neither one is the case.

@cwilbur : Thanks for your comment and your opinion just like everyone elses I respect. However – It was just a question. Your idea of money being the only means of exchange could in anyone else’s mind be inaccurate for we have many other ways today to use a means of exchange. When you look at money today – and where it is going do you ever think about how our money is actually made? Most people will say it comes from the Federal Reserve. Yes, but before each dollar is made by the reserve it takes money to make money. Where is the money coming from. I’ll tell you where it is coming from – Money is made out of debt, debt to European banks that exchange a certain Note that is supposed to equal each dollar being requested to be made. Plus it is charged in interest so in other words the more money is made the more debt is made right along with it. This is just America alone which has not been out of debt since the 1700’s – now imagine this happening on a bigger scale with every other country involved.
My argument is not just with the government for I mention very little about the government being the problem. No, if anyone I am blaming then I’ll have to say I blame you and I for depending on a piece of paper for our everyday wants and needs. The corrupt banking corporations that in the long run profit off of your everyday life I also blame. The same banks that have profited both sides of WAR going as far back as WWI if not further who do not care about you or me. Who don’t care about who’s family is on the streets starving out of the millions across the globe.
You see, this is not the only site I’ve ever asked this question on. I have heard many opinions and ideas over this subject alone. Some people think we need money just because we need it to make a living. Others believe that money is just another form of slavery which has you working everyday for someone who is far wealthier than you, feeding his family while you struggle to feed your own. This is a cycle that will continue from generation to generation of not just one country but all over the world.
Here is my point: Weather right or wrong the world still has poverty. It has more poverty now than ever before. On top of this you have disease, aids, and sickness without a cure. Yes people are dying in parts of the world and in some case some as soon as they are born. While you are buying fast food in you home with your family another family is begging for food to eat, a place to live – they can’t work because they are to week to stand, their children can not go to school because they are supporting their families making footballs, soccer balls, and so on for your kids and they are only paid the equivalent of $0.10 per day. This could have been your or my family and no one would care. Why should one country be wealthier than the another. Why is our system of living so divided by the class of how much money you have? Why do we no longer care about each other – (in south America right now the price of life is cheap – people are killing each other in the street and just going on about their business) There are girls selling themselves as prostitutes just to feed their families. What if that was your daughter? I could go on like this for a long time and it all will lead back to money in some way or the other.

————————- Something is really wrong with our world today.

Because bartering is too damn complex, and our population is too large for us all to survive by subsistence farming.

If you don’t like money, then it is theoretically possible to live off the grid, but it is a hard life.

@Shamone_Styles: Make whatever points you like about how terrible the world is now, but make sure to compare the standard of living of the average person nowadays to the standard of living of the average person 200 years ago.

People living in poverty in the United States nowadays have access to health care, education, and nutrition that’s substantially better than European royalty had 200 years ago.

Yes, I have compared and yes technologically, scientifically and economically we are better off than it was 200 years ago. However – we are far more worse with everything else when we have all this and we still have a 400 yr old problem like slavery still around in the world, when we still have that old problem of poverty, war, oh by the way here’s a new problem – terrorists, guns, desease, prostitution (which is one of the worlds oldest professions), let’s see—- corruption——well it goes on and on and on…. How much more is better really is it for the world as a whole.

Of course there are better alternatives. before money we used pretty stones and seashells for a means of exchange. After all, you can’t always bring a basket of eggs with you to trade directly for milk or the rent…Money as we know it is still the medium for exchange because the powers that be are the ones enforcing this means of exchange, and the millions of peope on the bottom haven’t the gumption to complain or to change things…yet.