do we really need a money system?

[Warpy]

107. While this would work in hippie communes

and works in some of the tribes on reservations, it breaks down completely when you confront a complex society.

While you might be able to give commodities to the doctor who treated you for a cut or broken bone, how on earth would you barter with the cast of thousands it would take to get you through a serious pneumonia requiring hospitalization? How could you possibly get things like cars or vacuum cleaners that are produced by hundreds of people on assembly lines?

Money is a debt marker. It allows us to exchange our labor for what we need through something portable, with agreed upon value. That's why and how it was invented

Problems occur when some people want to hold all the money in the country and labor is not being paid what the labor is worth. Should we ever devise a mechanism to prevent the greedy from doing this--and the New Deal with its nearly confiscatory top tax rate nearly accomplished it--we will find fewer problems arising from the system of exchanging tokens for units of work for things the worker needs.