MoneylessFuture

1. [The Culture by Iain M. Banks]
   
2. [Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow]
   
3. [The Federation] from Star Trek.
   
4. [The Dispossessed] from Ursula Le Guin's [Ekumen] series.
   

The [Standard Definition] of money as a medium of exchange used to make a barter economy more efficient was mentioned, but counter proposals included non zero-sum tokens and using a trusted central AI to allocate resources as alternative methods of generalising barter to more than 2 people at a time.

AbrahamMaslow's HierarchyOfNeeds say that what motivates someone most at any one time tends to be their most basic need not currently fulfulled.  In a culture where everyone has the basics like food and safety Maslow predicts they will be mostly concerned about things like achieving a certain minimum status level (being respected) and learning about themselves.

Were this to happen, would a culture's medium of exchange tend to move away from a zero sum explicitly valued money commodity towards something better suited to helping people achieve their aesthetic, friendship and self-actualisation goals?

And if so, what would be more suited?

The other social issue here is control.  Having anonymous cash (electronic or physical) enables the existence of grey and black markets, which provide a force to counterbalance governmental tendencies towards increasingly close monitoring and control over their citizens' activities, thus promoting freedom.  (See CashIsGood)

Groan at the pun.  But you need to define a lot more base assumptions before it's worth arguing it.  'The culture' does it by having practically infinite localised production - each person has sufficient so no trade need occur.  A bacterial culture likewise manages without.  --Vitenka

[proposed principles] for an AttentionEconomy? /ScienceFunding