Sponsor: http://RidleyReport.Podomatic.com -
Below is the raw text I used to create this podcast....since it was designed merely to read and not to publish...it has various spelling/punctuation errors. But I'm throwing it in for completeness and keyword searchability.
There's been a fair amount of talk on free talk live lately regarding the concept of a society without money. Of course the FTL boys scoff at the idea and no it's probably not possible to get all the way there. might not even be good. But I do think a free society will use money less than this one does. As usual ...the inspiration for this concept comes from history, and from observing civilization's mid term direction.
In 1910 I don't think it was very common to walk into a department store and get free water. Free toilet paper, free paper towells, free access to toilet facilities with running water. But today ... things like that are expected. No money changes hands because the items have become so cheap it's not worth the trouble. old computers...and parts... you can get a lot of those free too. This is not a result of increasing liberty but of technological advancement. but speaking of liberty the libertarian party estimates that were we to achieve freedom in America.... you'd pay about 2 grand for a new ford taurus. Prices would drop about 90 percent on many things, they say. This would result from the removal of what I call layered taxation. Right now, for instance, the supplier probably has to pay tax on every part that goes into building the Taurus's alternator, it pays social security for its laborers, then Ford has to pay tax and markup to the supplier when it buy the whole alternator, then it has to meet all these regulations and pay its workers more because of income taxes. Then it has to charge you a sales tax when you buy the whole car. And there's the state and federal corporate taxes. That's just the stuff off the top of my head. So a car with a free market price of 2 grand costs buyers closer to 20 grand.
Well what if we applied the same logic to items that are already inexpensive and unsubsidized. They might drop in price so much that you'd start to see them treated like paper towells and water. Maybe instead of just a free gulp at the water fountain...you get also get free sandwiches at the grocery store. Or free CD-R's and mice at the computer store. Free laptops could be the next step...society is experimenting with that concept already . and its no coincidence the lightly regulated computer industry is the source of so many cheap things.
One of the biggest pushers of the no money concept is star trek. as utopian as some of gene roddenberry's ideas were i think the broken clock was right twice with some of his projections of that day.
His concept of a replicator...was right on the money so to speak...and brings with it the ability to futher reduce money's importance. Replicators create whatever you ask for , materializing it in a little box. Replicators already exist in crude form. You have one...it's called a printer. The present day printers just create whatever PICTURE you ask for. But aerospace companies already have a printer that will make whatever SHAPE you ask for. The next step would be a printer that creates those shapes with moving parts inside. Just as it costs a token amount to print paper, it may eventually cost a token amount to print , say, a defribrilator.
It will probably be a small expense maybe not worth the trouble of passing on. Technology will take us this direction eventually. but freedomw will take us even further. money really can become a lot less of a factor. like the movie theatre attacked by television...money won't ever disappear. but it will fade. deflation will happen , like in the 1870s. IF we can just get through the hard and artificially inflationary times that are to come first.
How you can buy an ad on my video show
http://RidleyReport.com/Ad
Image from: http://dooms-day-device.com/
cashless ron paul star trek free state project society without money philosophy new hampshire philosophical ridleyreport talk radio dave ridley report podcast political talk radio glenn beck air america nh staters liberty big governmnet inflation hyperinflation live free or die libertarian lrn.fm neal boortz