Money and Private Wealth

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	   WITH  WHAT  WOULD  YOU  REPLACE
	       MONEY  AND  PRIVATE  WEALTH ?

	Take away your money and with what do we replace
	it?  Stores where everything is free?

	It may come to that.  If we are successful in building
	self-replicating goods, factories, etc., it is possible that
	the most economical system will be one where people
	are trained from infancy to shop modestly for free and
	take good care of the things they own.

	Take away private property (wealth if you have enough),
	and what do we replace it with?  A temporary right of
	possession?

	That might work -- it even is the case today when you
	factor death into ownership.  If all was free and no one
	took up too much space with their body and their stuff,
	private wealth as personal security might not be needed.

	Meanwhile, money supplies necessary motivation -- if
	we are ever to produce so much to own, money won't be
	around.  And private wealth is the best antidote we have
	for the pain of other people (thank you Sartre).

                                 John Gelles
        jjgelles@xxxxxxxx                http://www.rain.org/~jjgelles/
        Modern nations cannot afford poverty, it costs too much.
        Its price is the money  the poor don't spend  that the rest
        would earn if they did.  If those with the least spent what
        it takes for a decent life, the rest would all have more for
        a grander one. That is  the nature of  production and free
        enterprise  protected  from monopoly  by law, and  from
        deflation and inflation by  individual indexed savings held
        in tax free accounts to create a controlled flow of money.