Until recently, the US government was spending 1.7 cents to make a penny and 8 cents to make a nickel. We have budget deficits in the hundreds of billions, yet if we just stop overpaying for our own currency, we could save up to $39 million a year. Unfortunately, it will cost businesses close to two billion just to modify their coin machines. Not to worry, there is a better solution out there. Paper currency is at the heart of the problem. It is horribly antiquated and causes inflation, bank heists and general inconvenience at “cash only” laundromats. To circumvent these problems, we should go back to a trade and barter system.
Bartering is the greatest mode of exchange that has ever existed in our society because it solves all of the problems that paper currency has caused. For example, bartering is environmentally friendly and doesn’t require us to contribute to deforestation or global warming. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, after all. What if we could simply trade items we as a nation have too much of (obesity, capitalists, ridiculously hilarious presidential candidates) for items we actually need?
Bartering also solves inflation: we can always print more paper, but we cannot as easily print more cows or sticks or rocks. We will no longer need international exchange rates: a pig is always a pig, regardless of geography or political conditions. Blue collar and service workers will also have more social mobility - depending on the circumstances, some people might be willing to trade their new model Tesla for a lifetime supply of Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supremes.
With bartering, no longer must we trade an American dollar for an Indian rupee, or an Albanian lek for a Danish krone. No longer must we analyze the rise and fall of the value of a piece of paper, which is only constant when it fluctuates. No longer must we have currencies that are based on gold, floating and fixed exchange rates, dollarization, convertibility, or a whole bank vault full of complicated financial jargon that no sane person cares enough to even attempt to understand. Bartering will allow the government of Zimbabwe to stop printing trillion dollar notes and to use their wheelbarrows for farming and not for holding enough paper notes to buy a piece of gum. Robbers may actually be the only ones who do not benefit from bartering: it might be difficult to rob a bank, but it is much more tedious to rob a farm and transport a cow to the nearest black market.
Paper currency might be marginally better than some other types of currency, like Snapchat’s new “pay via selfie” feature, but is still very much a societal burden. So much of the world’s progress is being held back by this outdated monetary system. Imagine a world where you walk into your nearest restaurant, hand the Rolex you barely wear to the cashier, and receive a hot plate of french fries in return. An individual’s willingness to pay drives all economic transactions in a seamless, self-governing way. Even better, those “cash only” laundromats will finally be as useless as an overpriced penny.