But really, it's much simpler than that. Treat others like they are your family and don't profiteer. Animals don't use money. Humans don't need money either. It's a choice. We need science and technology to promote progress. We can do it together by aggregating resources smartly. Unfortunately, most of us aren't smart enough to agree upon the best use of resources. We need tools that will assure us that our needs are met and that we have fulfilling lives. That takes a great deal of patience and care. Most humans are incapable of that. Perhaps intelligent machines will take care of our needs and allow us to provide adequate resources to build a Type 1 civilization one day.
So... instead of capitalism we just need almost all humans to be very patient and careful, extremely smart, and treat all strangers like family? You have a problem with a theoretical consequence of capitalism based on questionable logic and supported by crony-capitalistic examples so you counter-propose a system of social order in which several of the axioms are blatantly false, two of them by your own admission! Even without calling out many of the dubious claims in your argument, and paying no heed to the bias, you still quickly begin to consider the necessity of intelligent machines just to make your proposal tractable.
Fail.
Exactly.
But to elaborate to cbeast why
Animals do use money. Male chimpanzee trade fruit with females, so they repay later with sex. Money is basically just information, which tells the traders the relative scarcity of the goods at THAT moment, and also tries to predict the future scarcity of the given resource. Also, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value, as long as value is subjective, and lacks any determinism, you MUST have a tool to communicate this information about demand-supply. Because people change their minds. Because resources gets depleted/new sources found/new technologies found etc. Or just shit happens none expected http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
The economy is never and can not be in a state of equilibrium! And at the same time, it is always in it, because for that moment, the moment you pay - voluntary trade -, you just set a new equilibrium!
I hate this notion, you said
"Perhaps intelligent machines will take care of our needs and allow us to provide adequate resources to build a Type 1 civilization one day"
Every collectivist thinker starts from the failed Platonic logic of "philosopher kings" type of society, where someone or something will force us to do good, for our own sake.
Free will exists. Get over it. Be self reliant, spend energy, adapt, adopt, improve
Now, you see why people long for socialism, where everything gets handed to them, and they do not have to think and risk, and choose.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM
You have not answered the money=information argument. You just twisted it, and draw a straw man, "sex with children"....
I will not save 101 economics Wikipedia, since you obviously have not read them, if you were, you would not call the money transaction of an animal an economy. Economy needs production and trade, and innovation by conscious individuals. There is no production in animal kingdom.
Also, i do not BELIEVE in the "invisible hand", i KNOW it, the evidence is overwhelming. You can see it every day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ERbC7JyCfU this speech explains it very clearly, what the free market in REALITY does every single minute!
If you can not comprehend it, that is not my problem, reality will just leave you behind. It is just weird, to deny the existence of the free market on the Bitcoin forum.