Think about that for a second. I am talking about a world that operates without the presence of money. I am talking about a world where there are no poor people or rich people. I am talking about a world where people still maintain an occupation, but not because of the paycheque they receive. A world where money does not effect almost all of the decisions you make in your life. A world where money was never created. That is the world about which I am talking.
There is a short video on YouTube, that you may have watched called, “What if money didn’t matter” or ” What if money was no object” (Same video, different titles). The main message revolved around the “doing what you love” concept. That’s great, but to do what you love, you still need money. Right? Or am I completely wrong and writing blog posts at 3AM has finally caught up to me?
Think about everything in your life right now. Almost everything required money in order for you to have it. And don’t retort with: freedom of speech, oxygen, family, or anything else like that because I can assure you that people living on the streets have those things and are worse off than you and I, which is a shame.
The computer you are looking at right now.
The cell phone in your side pocket.
The clothes on your back.
The roof over your head.
The running water that appears when you turn on the tap.
The car you drive.
The college that educates you.
The school books in the bookstore that end up in your backpack.
The chiropractor appointment you make because of the pain in your back.
The food you eat.
The toothbrush you use.
The toilet paper you wipe…nevermind.
The lawnmower you use to cut your grass.
The BBQ you use to make steak.
The television you watch.
The couch you sit on.
The bowl for your popcorn.
The batteries for your remote.
The gifts you buy for people’s birthdays.
The sports equipment for your kids.
The glasses you are wearing.
The shoes you wear.
The chocolate bar that is screaming your name through the glass of a vending machine.
Everything that I just listed involves money. But how does that money end up in your pocket? Great question. You are smart readers!
The most common way that people make money is through their job. (Now, I’m not talking about jobs that pay minimum wage. And I don’t mean to offend anyone who is working minimum wage jobs, while providing for their family. You are a hero, in my books.) The type of job I am referring to is one that comes with a five, or six, figure salary and benefits. In order to get a job like that, you need to have an education. Well, to obtain an education, you need money to pay for it. And if you don’t have money to pay for an education, then the popular belief is that you cannot get a job like that. I’m sure some people have done it, but “popular belief” often overlooks those individuals.
What I have laid out, so far, is a world where money means everything.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of money influencing my decisions. Sure, if someone gave me a million dollars right now, I’d take it and run away like Usain Bolt. But that’s not reality. The reality is that people need money in order to live a comfortable lifestyle and be seen as successful by their peers. No one wants to be seen as a failure, or even be associated with one. Don’t believe me? Well then why are people homeless? Shouldn’t their friends be taking care of them and giving them a place to stay until they are on their feet? Or maybe they don’t have many, if any, friends left. That’s tough to think about.
So then get rid of money. Set every single person on this planet back to zero. People talk about equality? That’s one way you make people equal.
Of course, we won’t wake up tomorrow morning and read a tweet from the Government that says, “Money is banned. It will be shredded. Start living for each other, not money. #Equality.” Look at how easy that was. And it was less than 140 characters too! It can happen!
No, it will never happen.
But what if it did?
What if, society as we know it, still operated the same way, but with the absence of money? What if money didn’t impact any of our decisions?
What if we walked into a grocery store and got what we needed in order to fill our stomachs for the week? What if we left behind what we didn’t need – just like we would if we were on a budget? What if children could buy their own clothes and not rely on hand-me-downs? What if teachers still taught and students could study anything, anywhere? What if people still built houses because they believed that everyone should have a roof over their head? Homeless people could move in. Everyone would still do what they normally do – except bankers and accountants. Sorry about that. But have no fear, you won’t be unemployed for long because other organizations won’t have to worry about paying you!
What if ALL children grew up without living in poverty? What if every child had the chance to pursue any education they desired? What if, after they achieved that education, they are employed instantly – doing what they love? What if everyone in the world knew they had a job to do in order to keep society running? Think about that. Everyone pitching in, and doing their share, to keep everyone happy. Sounds like an episode of Barney. You want to go on a two week vacation with your family? Airlines will fly you wherever you want to go. Oh yeah, everyone will receive first-class treatment because that is the world you now live in. Enjoy the additional leg space, fellow tall people!
A world without money would require everyone’s full cooperation. Otherwise, it would be a disaster. For example, if food or clothing companies decide to stop, everyone – including themselves – would suffer. Inevitably, there would be people who would take advantage of everything being free. There would be people who think they can sit back and watch, have everything handed to them, and live a fancy lifestyle. In order for a world without money to be successful, it would require a re-wiring of everyone’s psyche. We would have to change how EVERYONE viewed the world.
Doing things for others because we want to, not because we are required to by a job description – that is the world I’m talking about.
I’m talking about a world where everyone is treated equally. When was the last time you treated a homeless person the same way you treat your best friend? Exactly.
What if money didn’t exist? Would we all be happier? I have no idea; this is a big, “What If”, that I’m having far too much fun exploring. I do know that everyone cannot start living this way tomorrow, or ever. A world where money doesn’t exist would have had to start at the beginning of time and instilled in our character. It wasn’t.
I realize this entire post has been one big pipe dream; I don’t care. I just think it would be cool if everyone could just come together, as a planet, and do things out of the goodness of their heart, rather than a paycheque. And maybe sit in a circle, hold hands, and sing Cumbaya. Too cheesy? Yeah. Here’s some crackers.
All I’m saying is, we hold doors open for each other every day, how hard could living in a world without money be?
NOW WHO’S WITH ME!?
No takers? What if I paid you…
The Captain's Speech 
Living in a world without money would be amazing. The whole “do what you love thing” sounds great in theory, but not many of us can live comfortably doing what we love. At least, I personally don’t think so. For musicians/writers/other artists, you have to be considered “good” at what you do by others. And even if you are good, you then have to get noticed; word has to spread. For me personally, my passion is animals, especially horses. I dream of hitting the lottery or getting rich so I can start a horse rescue. Rescuing horses costs a hell of a lot of money, though. But, if there was no money… You might be on to something… 🙂
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Hi Marie Anne, thanks for the comment!
What you said is exactly the point I was trying to make. It’s hard to follow your passion when money is a road block and I don’t think that’s fair, but that’s the world we’re stuck in I guess. Best of luck to you and I hope you win the lottery so you can pursue that dream!
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Long, but interesting! Nice work. Also, I nominated you for “The Seed of Light Award”!
Visit http://wp.me/p2WZET-9V to see your nomination! And no it’s not a spam lol.
Enjoy your moment! Cheers!
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Thank you!
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Pingback: What if money didn’t exist? | Random Questions
I was just thinking about this the other day, literally. I, too, have a passion and cannot pursue it without having money in the bank to pay the bills I racked up getting an education towards that 6-figure-plus-benefits job you talk about. Getting a “crap” job to pay “the bills” in order to “save money” to pursue your dreams? No wonder so many of us suffer from anxiety, depression, and helplessness. Unless you’re born with that proverbial silver spoon, being happy with “a career” is damn near impossible. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who’s considering this pipe dream. Thanks for writing this.
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You’re welcome, glad you can relate!
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I completely agree with this, oh my god! I’ve always wondered about if the world would be a better place without it. Would it not? No one would be poor, no one be rich. Everyone could be fed in the right way, get enough clothes, help if they have an illness or a disability without the need to pay. Nothing to pay for, I believe, would be better. In the UK, if you have children, but neither parents have a job then you go on benefits (the government pay for things); but if there was no money then these parents could get the things they need for their children and themselves. Yes, maybe some people would be greedy, but maybe, lets say, there were still checkouts at shops but to see how many of each item you could get, this could control the amount of things people get at a shop. I’ve always wanted to be able to help poor people, disabled, old, less fortunate but at the moment I’m too young, so seeing all these people and not being able to do anything is devastating – if there was no money then they probably wouldn’t be like that in the first place so I wouldn’t have to feel down for not being able to help.
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Thanks for the comment! It’s definitely something interesting to think about. A lot of problems in life revolve around money. If money didn’t exist, we can assume all these problems can go away and people would live happier lives. Money not existing is one of the biggest “what ifs” there is.
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The big trick, Paul, in this dream world without money, would be for people to take and use just what they need. How would we get rid of greed? Even without money, it would be impossible for everybody to have everything because of the finite: natural resources, mainly, and food, and space. Intriguing concept, though, I surely agree.
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You’re absolutely right, Mark. Greed will always be there and it would be very hard for everyone to everything they desire, but it would sure be a bit easier. Just a thought I had! Appreciate the comment!
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I wish money didn’t exist every, single, day. I actually remember wishing this half an hour ago. Money is the root of all that is evil. Love this post! :))
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Preach! Thank you!
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well captain, nice thought.. I too had one yesterday and written in my blog.. I truly agree with your post.. but I had a vision of consequences… before I pour my view, I wanna tell you something about one Movie called “In Time”, hope you might have seen it.
there all human beings are genetically modified and born with a digital timer in their hand, he or she can live only till that timer laps, you will get wager as 2 days, 3 days will be added in your timer.. and go on.. that fiction world also divided into lot of time zones. where high class people will be in top level time zone, they will get the work done from low level time zones… movie goes like this..
if we skip money, we need to have a motivational factor to make you work, to make you come office everyday, who will take care of the commodities? Government is as corrupt as inefficient… look at the population dude, half of big fat people would claim with human rights commissions and ask for a free home delivery pizza everyday… there wont be any value for law and order, if everything is free, there is no need to steal, so it will reduce crime rate. but you will lose patience with street raper.
with this world’s population, we can’t survive without money. because money will make you think you are living a better life than a beggar.
in my blog, I recommend to skip money & go back to our old ages. there we work for grains / wheat / dry fruits / vegetables.. etc may be in your country whatever the raw eatable items you would want in your day to day life.
you still work in an office, but your company would pay you in terms of grains/ fruits & vegetables / or some metals.. / BUT NO PAPER MONEY OR ELECTRONIC MONEY CONCEPT HERE
you will trade your grains for buying your required groceries, milk, meat.. or whatever you like.
you can also save only for a week…
if you are sick, you can lend from your friends or bank of course with a doctor certificate..
let the rest of all transportation, buses, trains, gas, hospitals, schools, colleges, we will pay in terms of grains..
i want to buy a ticket, I’ll pay in terms of grains…
I want to buy Gas for my car, I’ll pay in terms of grains…
everything, we need to exchange… it would look like a possible implementation of our common problem so called money.
lets have some chat in Facebook or whatsapp in your leisure time or post me an email I’d respond..
but we have to do something about this bullshit paper money concept man..
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My goal in life is to make this come true. Watch me.
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On a random thought, I decided to do a search about life without money, and this blog came up. I found it very refreshing. One of the things that brought me to this thought was an article that I recently read from Al Jazeera, about America being an oligarchy. Money is controlling our government. If we took away money, there would be no way for our government to be controlled and influenced by those that have money. What about a ration system for our needs, where everyone gets the same? I know that still allows a way for people to scam and become greedy, but if everyone got the same, imagine how much stress would be lifted off of our shoulders? Take away the reason for war because we did not have to control our interests in another country to get the gas or oil that we needed? This is an incredible idea. I truly wish that it would come true.
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Thanks for the comment! I agree with you, there would probably have to be some sort of ration system to keep things in order, but I don’t think it’ll ever be possible. Hypothetically, if we woke up tomorrow and found out money didn’t exist anymore, the people who spent their whole life making money (I think) would feel cheated…even though everyone would be equal. This “no money” concept would have had to start thousands of years ago.
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I love the idea of money not existing. No one pays the earth for its resources and she’s not asking for anything either, so we really dont need it. If money was no longer used, itd take a long while for society to get used to it. Some people would get straight to bartering while others would share. There would be no limitation on technological advancement in terms of funding. After decades of this, people would be conditioned to be less selfish and more self-reflective. Compassion and bravery would be something many would aspire to have. People would love their jobs and only really do it for self-satisfaction and the gratifying responses of others for their goods/services. Individuality would be encouraged..there would be no classes. I mean, there would still be problems in the world, but none related to money.
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Exactly! It would be hard to implement and would take a few generations for people to get used to it, but life would be so much easier without the presence of money that everyone would be much happier…I think, at least.
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We just have to be mindful of whatever government pops up. If my imagination is rational enough, those people would definitely dread ruling other peoples lives, so gvt. Leaders wont wind up being dictators. And if they do, no one is afraid of booting them. Perhaps the country would feel like one giant community and everyone could trust in the fact that they could trust everyone.
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First off we need to look at why we have money. Another article I read pointed out that Neanderthals and early homo sapiens were communal (gasp, socialists?!) hunter gatherers who had no need for what we know as money. At some point, probably around the time we started building cities, a small percentage of the population decided they were superior to the masses and needed to be above the rest. That was more than likely the beginning of what we know as the money system. Yes, nomadic people had the chief system but form what I know the system was nothing like what we developed later on. Ninety nine percent of the human population is and always has been essentially worker/consumers. Only one percent is and has been what we consider capitalists. It’s more about power and control than anything. Over the generations we have been condition to think that money is the only way to go. In another article on this subject someone wrote that money is the greatest invention (No you fool, we all know that duct tape is the greatest invention! Ha Ha!) but I would argue it is really the worst invention we have come up with. The reason we continue using money and allow a small part of the population to manipulate us with it is because we don’t know any better. The monetary system really has been forced on us. It could have easily gone the way of Star Trek, i.e. equality, sustainability and so on but those who have a superiority complex decided otherwise.
How many times had you heard the statement, “I would do that if I had the money”? That can range anywhere in severity of replacing worn out carpet in one’s home to replacing a 75 year old bridge that could collapse at any moment taking hundreds of motorists to their death. Just think if at some point humans would have told the wealthy and powerful who really run our governments to go to hell and tossed aside money and moved on as a species where we would be! I can tell you right now we would be exponentially farther advanced than we are now.
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Fuck yeah man I’m with u on that one this world is so fucked I hate it because it could be 100 times better but its this government that brainwashes us so good and states a set of rules for everyone to follow and it pisses me off BC some people are aware of this and don’t do shit about it everyone needs to come together and spread the word
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PEople, acoording to the majority of religions, are in one way or another greedy, selfish, dishonest, ungrateful, and other negative traits. I agree that a world with no type of trade would very much be a corruptive society. Though we dont have to have one and only one trading unit in a country or area.
Ex.
You would like to buy a watermelon form a merchant. Today you would pay some amount of money. Before, in ancient times, you would trade him something for his benefit. But perhaps we can combine the two saying you will accept a wider range of “payment”. Now you have a wider range to pay for the watermelon and you can give whatever is most convenient for you.
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You make a great point. I understand it’s not as simple as just removing money from the world and expecting things to be easier. There would definitely be challenges and other methods of payments would be born. Just an interesting thing to think about.
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I agree with this. I just introduced that to my Economics teacher, who turned it down, tried to make me look dumb. But if money didn’t exist, it would erase people’s fear of “Do I have enough money for rent this month?” or “I don’t have enough to buy food for my children because I need this money to keep our electricity on.” If money wasn’t a factor, it would keep the homeless off the street. People can do what they love. Our country will not be in so much debt. As of now, the United States is about $30 trillion in debt. Of course, there would have to be a great deal of cooperation, to keep people from hoarding everything from your grocery store. There would still be rules. A limit on the amount of things you can get. You get a paycheck if you’re unemployed. This paycheck goes to your bills, clothes, gas, entertainment, etc. Just so you can live. So your house has heat, water, electricity. But what if your house can run just the same without having to pay? Wouldn’t that be so much easier?
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