# If all money markets collapsed



## colm (6 Nov 2008)

hypothetically speaking could the worlds money markets totally collapse?
What if money just totally lost all value?
Could we recreate a society where the main forcus is not the accumalation of wealth?

Anyone any thoughts on this?


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## z109 (6 Nov 2008)

colm said:


> hypothetically speaking could the worlds money markets totally collapse?
> What if money just totally lost all value?
> Could we recreate a society where the main forcus is not the accumalation of wealth?
> 
> Anyone any thoughts on this?


If money markets collapsed, money (cash) would have hugely more value. Money markets tend to find the lowest acceptable price for money on an average basis, so their collapse would, I presume, lead to bilateral deals with more opaque pricing structures. It would mean an end to the visibility of the cost of money.

This sort of happened after the collapse of Lehmans when the Libor rates didn't reflect reality as nobody was lending money at any price!

Goods and services still have to be priced in something! So if 'money' as it exists currently ceased to exist, it would be reinvented as an efficient method of paying for things you don't produce and getting payment for things you do produce.


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## AlastairSC (7 Nov 2008)

True, but the OP also asks about the focus of society. Fundamentally, accumulating wealth provides 1. security for one's self and one's family 2. the opportunity to avail of items in limited supply e.g. education, travel. The only people who don't deal in money are the very rich and the destitute, the first because it's no longer important and the second because they have no opportunity to make any, what they need is dispensed by charity, the state etc. The rest of us use it to translate it into the goods and services we need or want. As these and almost all other sectors of society have monetary value built in, it's quite a re-think. 

A society where accumulation of wealth is not the focus is a different thing to a society free of money, though. Would it be true to say that most of us do not pursue wealth to excess, but to the point where we have enough? Would that meet the OP's aim?


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## colm (7 Nov 2008)

What I was asking was was if we had to could we as a society evolve beyond the the need where the accumalation of wealth is the driving force of our existence.


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## Jonathan.OB (7 Nov 2008)

I think Capitalism answers that question Colm.


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