Has any economic system without the concept of money ever been successful? Could it even be possible in the future...

Has any economic system without the concept of money ever been successful? Could it even be possible in the future? I don't mean explicitly some kind of socialism, but more a completely new system without any currency.

The only thing what comes in my mind is a ''change-based'' system, like ancient folks did before, but something say me that between change of goods and service there may be something else that can serve as base for a new system.
Capitalism may be the best we have now, but it is far from ideal. I strongly believe that someday, if humanity has to develop our economic system any further, we have to leave capital behind.

Barter systems worked fine before currency was invented

So why we don't barter anymore?

Because currency is better

Currency is simply a more convenient way to barter and a natural evolution of it. If you have something person A needs, but want something B has, but B doesn't want what you have, tough shit. You'll have to negotiate with A to get something B wants if you want to trade with him. But with currency everything is simpler, because everyone can always use money - or if they can't use it right now, they can still store it easier than they could store goods, and it's much more convenient to carry and handle as well. It doesn't(ideally) have large variance in value, and you won't wake up to find that half your currency is sick with something that'll kill them over few weeks.

>natural evolution of it

So what will be the natural evolution of money? Even with it's convenience there are clearly disadvantage of today's handling of money, like under and overproduction, existence by consumerism and, most of all: dependence of capital to produce, despite material and service capacity being available.

I truly believe there is a big potential without money. But how and what exactly?

Good question. We probably won't find out until we enter a post-scarcity society.

>So what will be the natural evolution of money
I suspect it will continue its historical trend of separating itself from physical value

humanity is hedonistic
money is the best means to consolidate hedonism

>humanity is hedonistic
Only if you are using the technical definition of hedonism, not if you are using it in the colloquial sense

>I strongly believe that someday, if humanity has to develop our economic system any further, we have to leave capital behind.

I don't think you understand what capital is.

Commodity currency, where you use, usually, a cereal, and buy everything with it.

It goes like this: barter -> salt -> cereals -> metals -> coins -> paper money -> virtual money

Barter system never existed. Pre-Cash most societies used a prestige based economy.

???

So what is capital then?
For me capital is an abstract value to define one's power of purchasing material and service, including already owned goods and ability as potential purchasing power.

"In economics, capital goods, real capital, or capital assets are already-produced durable goods or any non-financial asset that is used in production of goods or services. Adam Smith defines capital as "That part of a man's stock which he expects to afford him revenue""

What do you mean by 'money'. Currency? Wealth? And what do you mean by a new system? Doesn't that require a description of the old system?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge in the field, but I believe that both definitions, mine and yours, are similar, complete themselves and accurately define the role of capital in today's society, specially with the mention of one's ownership.

I stay with my deduction that the use of capital may impede overall economic development.

>I stay with my deduction that the use of capital may impede overall economic development.

>Using the means of production impedes economic development

Just remembering that men produced stuff much earlier before he even had any concept of capital in mind. Capital is, in the end, just a definition for mean of production and is only essential in the capitalist dogma.
So, means of production =/= capital.

The means of production are capital, labour and land. They have always existed regardless of peoples conception of them. Any tool is capital

If capital is defined as means of production, then means of production = capital. Language isn't that complicated of an idea, man.

Do ants have capital to produce this? Capital is only essencial in capitalism as school of though. Production is in a pragmatic way indepedent of the concept of ownership, therefore the definition ''capital'' lacks accuracy to define production as universal concept and only apply to the actual economic systems.

Ants, as far as im aware, dont produce thing which are then used to produce other things, so not they dont have capital. Humans have had capital since we first picked up a rock and used it to bang another rock into a different shape

Capital literally means anything that has been made, that can be used to make something else

Let me sperg out and define this even more. Capital is what sustains Mr.Caveman while he searches for a decent shaped rock to bang another rock. Mr.Caveman has to save food in order to search or produce a more roundabout mean of production (because time is scarce and you cant both produce a tool and search for food at the same time). Capital is time, and is to be found in every society and every historical time. .

OK, the way most pre-cash economies work, most goods produced are the basics of survival. But at the same time, the basics of survival have a limit of what you can consume. You can only eat as much as your appetite allows, you can only live in a home you can maintain, etc.

And sometimes, you will actually have more goods than you can consume. If I kill an elk, I can't eat the Elk for dinner. I can maybe make some sausage, but the bulk of the meat will still go bad.

Solution: I throw an elk party. I invite everyone over to my place, and I give away elk meat, letting my guests indulge, at no cost.


Hopefully, this means that you'll all think I'm great for giving you elk meat. And when YOU bag an Elk, you'll invite me to your Elk party. Or maybe, when I'm not so lucky hunting, I'll come by your place and be welcome to dinner. I convert the goods into social prestige, through gift giving, and that social prestige means I can depend on my group to provide a social safety net and basic goods.

This is how most cashless economies function.

Money was abolished in Cambodia during Pol Pot's regime.

Are you actually stupid?

Humans existed for tens of thousands of years prior to the invention of money, you inveterate mongoloid.

This. Barter system never actually existed, it was a just so story made up by Adam Smith.