p/s It would be like free beer at the pub! Condolences about the Wonnabes last night. I was in the pub with a couple of Kiwi's, rather painful.

Very few things in history have been free, as most have been acquired using some form of currency.

It doesn't get much battier than this.

Well, I have always wanted my own zeppelin. And a smallish personal menagerie, nothing too elaborate - just a few elephants (African), a giant tortoise, a few bears (various species), some otters and a Komodo dragon to start with. And I've always wanted to live in a castle, but not one of those old draughty ones, I'd want a new one built that still looks the part but has decent insulation. And I've got my eye on a few Dali originals, and...

Although according the FAQ's, greed is supposed to disappear once money is abolished, and if people are still greedy after that it's because they're not appropriately 'educated'. So I guess anybody submitting a wish list like mine - or just committing the sin of greed by expressing a desire for stuff that the orchestrators of this brave new world don't think they're entitled to - will have to be re-educated.

I wonder what happens to them if they're still greedy after their re-education?

Look I welcome the author and hope we will see more of him/her but as a trashy lefty, any one left of Trump is considered such by some here, it is plain stupid! as we came out of the caves, and all humanity did, trade was front and center, not giftes, why produce if not for gain? we started to grow food and traded it for cash or kind,communism never ever worked, the nearest it got was Cuba, a country still providing health care for free to other countries

Life without money is healthier and happier, it is how things should ideally be.

Where can we see it happening?

- In tight families.
- In the early days of the Kibbutzim.
- In monasteries.

What are the requisites?

1) The size of the society must be small enough for everyone to know everyone else well.
2) The group must be bonded by some common belief-system and ideals.

Without those, trust is not possible, so money has to replace trust.

The author, however, believes in technology and modern comforts, which require large-scale specialisation and coordination: small groups cannot provide that. Also the chances for a large population to have the same, or even close enough, ideals, is practically zero. Further, with current population numbers, even small groups who are willing to forego modern comforts, no longer have the physical space to survive without modern technology.

What the author wants, is simply a case of eating the cake and having it too.

Until human population is significantly reduced, the best we can aspire for, are small autonomous communities within which common ideals replace money, but who still trade between them. Even this is a big ask and alas, then there is the perennial question of what happens when members no longer share the same ideals.

The Kibbutz was successful and its members happy so long as population was sparse; the technology and comforts were basic; and the common aspirations were still in progress. When that changed, it collapsed.