Actually, money is a better means for the exchange of goods and services than the barter system. Money has a fluctuating, but uniform worth within an economy- something that goods, services, and commodities do not. And yes, one can sustain a living without the use of money. We could each grow all of our own crops, make all of our own clothes, purify our own water by boiling it, build our houses with our bare hands, and walk everywhere it is we need to go. It's entirely possible, humankind has been doing these things for a long time and a return to this lifestyle would not be beyond our grasp.
But I'm not going back, and I speak for a large portion of the leisure class when I say subsistence living be damned.
Beasts spend their lives dedicated to the three biological pursuits of life: eating, seeking shelter, and reproducing. Human beings have a capacity that as yet we have not observed in other animals; to create art, philosophize, study our environment with science, and derive pleasure from the experience of travel and appreicate other cultures.
That is where our calling lies. There is no time for things like these when we must spend our energy sustaining our lives and doing nothing more. So you can have your subsistence living- without money, might I add -just don't expect the rest of us to fall in rank because you've ventured to pronounce our lifestyle a sin.
None.
