The barter system doesn't have taxes.
Discussion
But it has a lot of friction.
Thanks God we got computers that solve that problem.
Computers can't solve the problem of physically moving goods.
they can register what has been moved
you literally don't need BTC (the "currency") at all
with blockchain you can register what value has been given and therefore what value you're entitled to receive back
based on agreed upon contracts signed, again, on the blockchain
we use "currency" only for convenience
A ledger can't assign value. People need to make that assessment for themselves. Currency allows for much less friction in transactions as a near universal means of exchange. It is more convenient and tends to be faster than nearly anything else we humans have come up with.
Yep. Currency is very convenient.
However barter through blockchain is also possible, not only theoretically, it's been done in pre-blockchain times, we used to use paper books for it.
It could be done much more efficiently using smart contracts computation.
For example, issue nft's that mean "1 hour of my work", then on the contract you define the value as "1 hour of my labor equals 1 lunch at Joe's Grill".
The network then calculates the value of that same hour of service when you want to purchase shoes, for example, based on a similar equivalence made by the shoe maker.
The nft's are burned according to your capacity to supply with the goods/service.
It would work amazingly well. I know this because, again, we used to do it with paper books, and it was a hassle. Computers make life easier.
I'd rather just zap some sats to a dude for his used thingamajobber that I want to use for a project. Way less complicated.
I read about a place that's doing stuff like you suggest, and I'm sure it can work at small scale.
p2p doesn't have taxes. You can still use money.
Precious metals too. Or anything fungible.
You pay the barter tax in the most precious resource, human time.
That's what we got computers for, to solve that problem.
That's dumb unless you are only bartering with digital things. If you are bartering with physical things the computer can't help you outside of being a calculator.
How does a computer fix the coincidence of wants problem?
Doesn't need to.
You issue tokens for your goods/services. No need for currency other than your commitment to give, for example, one hour of labor for each token.
Everyone in the network does the same.
Failure to honor token redemption results in reputation loss.
How much of their stuff you get in exchange for yours is determined by expectations defined by both parties beforehand in their respective token issuance smart contracts, and calculated automatically by the network (fairly simple algorithm).
This should work well for medium-sized communities.
No more "prices", no more speculation of any kind, no inflation (or deflation), only reputation and commitment.
100% networked barter.
That is retarded.
We already did it in a small community, pre-computer era, it works.
To give you a easier to understand example:
Suppose you want to buy a car that another member of the community built and is selling.
The "price" doesn't exist, so how do you know "how much" are you going to pay for it?
You ask the network (the computers), and they tell you "this car costs 1420 JOE tokens".
You know perfectly well how much each JOE token costs to you, because you issued them and you redeem it regularly! They cost you each one hour of hard work.
The tokens don't go to the former owner of the car. Instead, on YOUR account you get -1420 JOE credits.
On the other hand, the former owner of the car gets a positive amount of HIS tokens credited, in a proportion calculated automatically by the network, based on a simple algorithm (consensus rule) that compares different token issuance smart contracts of all members of the community.
You then "owe" the community 1420 JOE (labor hours) that will be have to be paid back every time someone requires your services.
For that to happen they will have to have enough of their own tokens (enough according to the algorithm).
And once you accumulated enough JOE (credits) you can buy another car or whatever you require from any member of the community.
this gets people triggered, lol
good job, I think we're onto something here