Money
It is true that money and the need and greed for money is a huge motivating factor, and that is how our societies have been running for ages. We have all gladly or begrudgingly or by force participated in the creation of this form of society, with its benefits and lacks. However, at this point, the game has been so skewed to those that have money and resources, that for most others, it is useless even running – almost like a lottery. There are many who believe in it, and many who put money and energy into it, but very few who reap the benefits amongst the millions who play. So it is with this present neo-liberal capitalism. Slowly more and more people will drop out of the running, until it will become an almost incestuous, but definitely nepotistic, game played amongst those wealthy enough to be able to participate in the game. The rest, it will be drudge, and labour and miserable conditions in which they will live.
The secret of this control is to ensure that those that do drop out do not have enough resources to be able to erect and maintain a different system, perhaps a different way of doing things. In the past, people opted out literally by simply packing and leaving. Up until recently there always seemed to be somewhere to be able to escape to. . . physically anyway.
Nowadays we have a different situation. The only space we have left in within the society that we live, and thus whatever arises will have to arise as a cancer or an illness to the body, and thus, hopefully the body society will arise changed by the experience, or otherwise, continue the same patterns, till the next attempt.
Future Money
Money could be thought of as virtual token by which complex multi-layered transactions can take place over long-distances and long times. It should not be just a store of value. The value should be intrinsic to the article itself – and its actual cost to produce.
That is possibly one of the core factors that are causing the economic system to malfunction – and that is that fact that the monetary value has little to do with its intrinsic value. Instead it expresses it value through a system that is severely flawed. In a large part due to the biases and controls that keep money flowing along specifically designed channels.
Taking into account the fact that a system can only produce a result that is as good as or less than the source that it is taken from. Thus if you have a flawed source, you will have a system at least as flawed. Perhaps the place to start in proposing economic systems is to base them upon a more complete description of the basic units of the system – us! It takes seven variable to completely (mathematically) describe a Turing computer (which is the “type” of computers we have). Surely we humans are more complex – but nevertheless this could be a fruitful area of exploration, using the same methods and thought process that caused the academics to agree to this description, to attempt to describe human behaviour. With an more accurate starting equation, it might be possible to design a system that express and supports human behaviour more effectively.