Topic: Can civilization revert to a barter system (Read 685 times)

From a legal point of view, barter transactions are actually an exchange agreement, that is, a type of civil law agreement in which one party undertakes to transfer some property to the other party against the obligation of the other party to transfer property of equal value to the first (from the point of view of the parties to the agreement). With barter, you still need to evaluate the value of the goods on both sides, and the currency of states does this well. That is, all the same, we turn to fiat in a barter transaction. At the level of a decent business, this is a very risky deal. In general, a return to barter is a return to the Stone Age.

Ima thinking about how high CBDCs will have the powers actually? I know that it is backed up by the government, but I don't think it will be a must done by their citizens to use CBDC.
Barter is actually complicated if used right now. The era has been different from the past.
It may work, but not sure if that will be effective and efficient, moreover f this is about long-distance trading and business.
On the other hand, the government will also not force to only use Cbdc. It only becomes one of the alternatives offered officially by the government, doesn't it? Not becomes the one that must be used.

Barter is inefficient overall in an economy so it is unlikely to be any improvement.    Its not like its ever gone away completely, deals are done all the time in some areas of the economy but overall it would reduce liquidity and monetary velocity by reducing pricing accuracy and ease of exchange.

Unfortunately that is mainly because it usually works at first, then starts not working. You have to understand that if there is a "way" that people could make money, then people will make money with it, and other people will realize, or someone will tell everyone and then suddenly everyone starts to make money that way and it will always end up with something like very little or no profit making since everyone is doing the same thing.

This is why I honestly believe that there is a big problem in the world of finances, same method can't make you rich over and over again, you have to realize that you need to keep researching new methods and adapt.

Actually, things like this are very natural for them because they are already comfortable where they were in the past and now, with all the advancements in technology today, they must inevitably change their comfort and get out of that comfort zone.
but they refuse and still maintain it even though things like this make them even more left behind.

I don't think that the civilization will revert back to barter but there are some people who still barter. For government or banks, barter won't happen. If reverting back to barter system then will it benefit us all or not?. As of now, we have a medium when you exchange or trade an item or product online or physical. The game I played didn't even have the barter system and it used a medium which is the game currency so when trading, selling use money instead of using another product to exchange.

Right,  it is never possible for a civilization to go back to the system of exchange because you know, civilization is never backward.
Look, the practice of exchange was introduced only when money was not invented. At that time people used to exchange their necessities with each other and thus meet the demand for all commodities.

But now it is traded for money. Money is now the main medium of exchange. Banking system has been established. Civilization has also come a long way, much more advanced than ever before from which it is never possible to return to the system of exchange by the extinction of money.

The major reason why the barter system was demolished is because the lack of value for a particular item in exchange for the other.
It would be very difficult to calculate the value of a particular product without a proper scale of price.
Also, if people think governments will be able to track the money and have control over it then it also becomes a disadvantage for themselves.
At any point of audit they could themself be tracked by higher authorities and get blamed for a fraud or corruption.

Of course, in this case there are some considerations that will not support the barter system like this.
if indeed we look at some of the weaknesses of the barter system, of course there are very many weaknesses there, one of them is like what you said about something that must be paid equally (in price not amount) and this will definitely be very difficult when indeed the development of civilization is getting higher but the system is applied is still the same. Of course, by creating money, it is to create something simpler and even if you look now at paper money in terms of payments, it has been much reduced and many of them have moved to a more modern direction, such as fiat, which is still ranked first in payments or indeed crypto in the world. some countries that have made them as a means of payment

With all the luxury that we have and all the philosophy and ideas that a work should get paid of something equal, I think that it's a no-brainer to say that we won't be able to go back to that point, at least on a global scale. This capitalistic society has build a strong supply chain that many industries rely on and reverting to that system might be considered catastrophic for theze industries.

This is true on which there are still people who are stuck in the past and wont tend to improve out themselves on trying out to adapt on whats the current system the world is in.
They do tend to stick on whats on the past and wont welcome on  any changes or advancement that is really currently happening and thats the hardest part in talks of full adoption
or integration of things and we couldnt  really just let ourselves get stuck with the old system which it is not really that worth nor sensible on continuing if there is
something which is more better and more faster and secure.

Will the existence of this CBDC eventually erase fiat or paper money that has been used by residents in each country?
Does this CBDC also mean erasing various e-Money that has been official and valid?
If not, why bother going to the barter system? Don't we still have this alternative?
Moreover, every time there will be changes. In the past the barter system worked well, even I still feel how the barter system works.
But as time goes by, people are increasingly allowed to use "fiat money" and eventually we get used to this. And now there is also e-money, then cryptocurrency. Some have used this, but that doesn't mean fiat money is abolished.
And if later CBDC is required and abolishes fiat, then it may only be done by certain countries whose people are already prepared.
But if everything is not ready, I'm not sure that they will force them to only use CBDC or people will choose to barter again.

That is quite exact to be honest, the centrally issued coins put together the worst of both worlds and, as a layer of glazed crap on top, it adds a built-in invasion of privacy. I would be very wary of even considering the use of any CDBC launched by a dictatorial or repressive regime such as China or Turkey, but even in the EU or the US I really hope they do not make it mandatory.

The problem is that rapid and even very fast technological advances are not accompanied by the readiness of some people who still want to be in the old system so they don't want to move from their place even though the demands should be seen that they inevitably have to follow civilization in order to not left behind, and this is what causes some people to lack interest in seeing the future because they are comfortable in the past

Yes, I guess the best way to approach these things is that any new idea should not be shot down right away, discussed and why it can't happen and then we can move on but we can't just ignore them because if people ignored bitcoin as a new idea, we wouldn't be here. Money or some sort of thing that provides value has to exchange hands, used to be gold in ancient times, now fiat, and we have crypto for the past decade or so, but has to be something.

I'm not sure that the barter system in this day and age applies. Maybe if 2 parties agree to barter I think it will go smoothly. but to barter in the state system I'm sure it will be difficult.

It can't be, nobody can go back to barter system, there could be some industrial barter systems available for some industries that goes around in a cycle but that is about it, cannot be global.

The whole point of OP even writing this was to test the waters and if we have so many people saying no just here, imagine how many people would say no to anywhere else. This is why I honestly believe that we should not be really shocked that barter systems could be anything but a failed system if it is even tried.

Come to think alone that technology advancement do really flies fast and everything is gradually turns out to be digitalized already which means that we cant really turn into those times on where barter system is on the

works because talking about precision and accessibility and time of execution times is much more faster or way more better then it is just dumb that we would go back into a system where it is done manually.

I dont get the point on considering that we would really be going into those old system which most people been thinking off on how to make things way more faster and better.

At one stage of the evolution of civilization, the exchange system was introduced among the people.  Man used to collect from others what he could not produce in exchange for the products he produced. 

This system was called the barter system.  Gradually money infiltrated and transactions started to take place through money. The bank is established to keep money deposits. Money became one of the means of exchange for human beings. Many more problems started with inflation.

 Is it possible to go back to the previous barter system to get rid of it?
 The answer is "no". 

Never possible.  In order to return to the state of exchange, the money and banking system have to be abolished which is by no means possible. The bank is not only a depository but also a financial intermediary whose job is to accept deposits, lend and raise money. 

If we want to go back to the barter system, we have to go back to civilization.  But we do know that "a civilization gradually evolves and becomes more advanced than before never go back.

Lol. That meme is perfect.  Keep an eye on Circle / Centre / Coinbase and the USDC.  Also keep an eye on Poloniex, Bittrex, BitFinex and USDT.  Both USDT and USDC are helping each other and I am quite convinced that USDC is already the Federal Reserve CBDC.  They obviously wouldnt tell anyone that, but if you look at the laws and the underlying code/contract, it already is.

I don't really think we can go back to the old barter system in which you would exchange or trade something in return because that was so outdated already and in modern times, you can hardly see the part in which you could try to insert it to be used again. Most especially now that innovation and technology are rapidly spreading and used by almost everyone. Maybe in a little area like in some parts of a country which is rural, it can possibly happen. In the province and in simple communities, this would be probable and doable - to have a barter system that could enable people to live like it was an old century again. However, this won't be possible in the cities as this is more of a task and not everyone has the luxury to trade something for something. This could also bring conflict such as unjust wage counterparts and such to the workers. It's still much better to have it in a money-based system. Because after all, we cannot pay bills with vegies. I doubt the big corporations would even accept that.

I don't really see how a barter system could be working in today's world. The world became so international in the last 50 years. Almost any large company produces in multiple countries and relys on transportation of goods across long distances. The barter systems humans had in the past waa very local restricted. You know the seller or buyer and exchange directly with him. But now electronics buyers from North America or Europe have no real interaction with the sellers from China. It can't really be a direct barter transaction, so we need something in between, which is money right now. There will always be the need of some kind of medium in between.

Barter system is the early stage of transaction method.  It has huge limitations that's why we needed evolution of currency and now we are in digital currency era.  In this technology era we need everything easily and fastly that's why we are prone to cryptos.  If we go back to barter system, I hope that's maybe a technology backing.

When a country's monetary system breaks down, eventually, a barter system does appear as an alternative. In late 2001, in Argentina, bartering was ultimately adopted by people, due to an extreme lack of reliability and liquidity on the Argentine "Peso".
The problem with a barter system is , it may seem like an alternative to a fiat system (especially when the country's economy is crashing), but it's not. One very important feature of the fiat system is it assigns a specific value to a commodity, and establishes the currency as the means for covering that value. in a bartering system, if I own something, it becomes increasingly difficult to transact it, as you need to have the specific good I want, beside the specific amount.

So, no, I don't think bartering is a suitable alternative to a fiat system, at least not in the long run. It may help in some circumstances, but soon enough it reveals its shortcomings.

When goods are exchanged, it is not so much that is balanced, because normally a price must be obtained in usd, but really when exchanges occur it is because they have very strong economic problems, so much so that some people exchange their precious movable goods for markets and food to guarantee their nourishment.

In other markets, somewhat fairer exchanges or exchanges are made, some buy or remove scrap and what they do is sell it, only to pass it to another country through steps such as trails to be able to acquire some money and be able to survive, in Venezuela for the side of the borders with other countries present this type of bartering.

Barter is still part of the current system and it happens everywhere regardless of where you are located and your socioeconomic status, one of the communities where I see a lot of barter taking place is with musicians.

Musical instruments and related accessories are expensive, while most musicians are just making enough money to subsist and as such most of them cannot afford new instruments or a piece of gear they need, so they rely on barter to get what they need, they exchange whatever gear they have for what they need, but as I said I do not see how we could run the whole world economy in that way.

This is a pretty interesting concept but I am not sure it could work in the modern day and age.  I think most people are still at the point where they simply trust the government for almost everything and I unfortunately don't see that changing any time soon.  Instead of using these government coins, how about we just use bitcoin.  If they ban it from local exchanges, use over the counter buys/sells.

This is an exception because the area is far from urban areas, maybe until whatever year I am sure the barter system will always happen,
and as long as people feel comfortable why should change everything,

the barter-based system only applies in small neighborhoods, it can be said even between neighbors next to the house if it is suitable,
but for the wider community, I don't think it will happen again, because nowadays there are many conveniences in making transactions and it can be said that everything is online-based.

Why people think that thing's is impossible is because they have not found the truth of the thing they are looking for or the solution of the things they are looking for, when you are in close with the key of any problem solution it does not look like it is difficult to solve, blockchain project people are complaining of it method but i don't know reasons is anything going wrong there?

Logically returning to the barter system seemed impossible. But this world sometimes doesn't work according to logic there are many ironic and irrational things that often happen even though we can confidently say it's backwards and impossible.
So in my opinion, a return to the barter system is possible. It could be that one day the internet around the world is cut off (because of a meteor that messed up a satellite for example) so that we return to the previous system.
The barter system does look ancient and traditional and it seems impossible to use the system again because our civilization has found a much better system. but did you forget? In the past, before humans invented clothing technology, our ancestors were naked, but today we meet many people who are naked, not because they don't have clothes, but because they think it's cool.

It wasn't replaced by "cash", it was replaced by coins, not crypto version of course but the coins that we know from history. Was that a good idea? Well at times of war they melted every single gold thing and turned them into coins, and even fakes could have been done so easily, it was not the perfect solution, then came in banks and banknotes that you had money in the bank, that is how paper money started.

It was meant to provide proof that you had certain amount of money in the bank, and if you needed to pay someone, you got that much amount from bank as banknote, that is how the word "banknote" started. Then we moved to cash as we know today, which was pegged to gold, basically like banknote but by government, it meant to say how much money you have but easier, then they quit gold standard and now it worths absolutely nothing and means absolutely nothing. Aside from crypto, everything has a flaw in it.

Can civilization revert back to barter system? very brilliant question, but no one can really predict the extent to which civilization will turn out finally, we can only speculate. Who knows whether maybe we will see a reformed, civilised and modern version of the traditional barter system, there's no telling that already a structure to actualising this may already be in formulation in the mind of a big thinker, only time can tell really.

We wont really be coming back into those times on where barter system rules or would be used on this system.We've been progressed and improved way more better than on this system which makes things even more convenient and accessibile without any problems and i dont
see the point on why we would need to come back if we are currently make use of the best one so far?

Nothing is impossible, with the way there are so many innovative projects springing out in the blockchain space on a daily basis, we can see a modernized and the decentralized barter system in future.

Barter system is an unfair civilization when the estimated value is not true, almost at that time people were not aware of the value and usefulness of the products and resources they had, the only meaning is to exchange what they need and give away the superfluous that they can get every day, after a long time, society saw the shortcomings of this system, the created currency gradually became a convention of value for a product. Since that time, the direction of cash development and valuation has gradually improved, barter civilization is difficult to survive when people's minds are becoming more aware and calculating more about benefits

right, going back to the barter system is impossible because the government will definitely fight for their CBDC with all their power and effort

The barter system has never been abandoned until now, there are still many out there who use it but the percentage of those who use it is so small that there will be no mass adoption of the barter system again

The barter settlement system is a huge step backward. It is no coincidence that people as a whole abandoned this primitive method of calculations many centuries ago, after which it was replaced by cash. The role of money was first played by gold, various valuable items, until people began to use banknotes. Then they began to be replaced by non-cash types of payments, and now digital ones. This is the evolution of means of payment and we should not go back to the Stone Age.

It hurts to say it, but a couple of years ago in my country bartering was fashionable almost for survival, especially for babies, people gave 2 packages of flour, or 2 packages of rice for a package of diapers, some gave more things To get formula milk, the best exchanges were also any food item for gasoline, and I saw a case of a couple giving their child's car to a market. End of the world things have really been lived, and rather the things that are killing people in most countries such as Covid-19 here the rates are not so high, I think the food here is so complete that the antibodies that are generated are strong, some people drink water directly from the tube without boiling it or the water being treated, so bartering here is still an option.

Trade by barter is just too complex and cumbersome. The huge cost that comes with it is too expensive to manage in this current society of easy lifestyle. Cryptocurrency will help solve the government CBDC. Shops only need need to accepting digital coins across nations of the world, then the government will be forced to support it.

Barter is indeed everywhere but only on micro transactions or only into  those goods which could really be in exchange or some people or companies do make out that system which is considerable but making it as a main one then it cant be possible.

We cant revert back into those old age on where everything should be in exchange.Hate to say but we do have that monetary system now which
been in means of fiat transactions which make things easier.

Going back into something old system would really make things hard.

Not at all, barter had some real limitations which were why it was negated by almost everyone. The biggest difficulty faced in barter is finding a person who needs the thing that you want to give and is ready to give the thing that you want to take. Even with Ebay and the whole technology in the picture, this would still be a very difficult task, therefore there is no way that this could come back. People are moving towards easier solutions and not the more difficult ones. Also I am very sure that with advent of blockchain such type of thing isn't required where we are even doing our transactions based on P2P Trust.

USA is not at war with anyone right now, they have no wars that require them to spend that much money at all, it is quite obvious that they are doing it to get each other richer and that's it. They are a nation of military, how many nations is there out there who go up to soldiers and say "thank you for your service" at all times?

I mean it is obvious that they worship aggressive military movements a lot, hell Bush was losing elections and with one war he managed to keep his place, just because he started a war! In any other nation if you cause a war that usually means you are nearly out of the door because you would lose insane amount of votes when you start a war, in USA you gain votes when you start a war. So, they spending nearly 800 billion dollars a year on military is basically just a way to enrich politicians and warheads that has gun or similar stuff companies like lockheed.

When you have a look at the list of spending for military purposes, I always ask myself whether the United States just do it for defensive reasons. Right now that might even be the case, but won't the day come where it makes more sense that the military must be worth the investment?

The quote you provided is quite true, but it might also be the case that it's not nuclear rockets we use to kill each other, but viruses and bacteria. I wonder though whether you are really right with your prognosis that "it is so far off that our grandchildren will live to see that happen...). It just needs one crazy dictator freaking out.

Then again it could also be that everyone on this planet knows by now that nobody would get away with a nuclear attack. It would indeed mean a temporary end to planet earth.

Barter is still everywhere, if you help someone with an issue they are having it is not rare to receive a gift or dinner for your troubles, so we can say there was trade that took place and money was not necessary for it.

The problem is how to make this scale? How do you run the world economy by using the most primitive way to trade? And I really do not think this is possible, so a form of money will always be necessary to conduct trade at such a large scale.

It reminded me of the famous sentence "I do not know what world war 3 will be fought with, but the fourth one will be fought with sticks and stones". I mean humanity is capable of murdering everyone right now, isn't that a little bit scary? We are slowly doing it, boiling our world slowly and going to cause everyone to die in the future but it is so far off that our grandchildren will live to see that happen, which is why nobody cares unfortunately.

However, reality is that we are living in a world where we are having a bit of problem with nuclear war possibility as well. Not like it will happen right now, but we are "capable" of waging war and sending nukes to everywhere and kill everyone if we ever wanted to. This is the scary part, and if we ever create a war like that, or reach to a global warming level like that, then maybe barter system may happen.

For old age or era then we know that this is something where we do start off but only few things  do exist on that particular time which could easily be  traded off with something unlike  now if barter system do comes back then i cant really imagine on how things turns  out to be complicated because
we cant really denied that there are things which cant really be  possible to be applied.

We cant just go back or revert into those stone or old age because  this is something not to  be applicable on the world on what we are living now.

There is a logical explanation for this. On this island, these people, their "market" lacks goods and services with a large gap in "prices." For example, to change sweet potatoes for fish - it is enough just to compare the "exchange rate". Even exchanging a boat for fish - you can also compare the price and collect the required amount of fish. But how do you exchange, for example, your fish, for a car, provided that the owner of the car does not need fish, but you do need a car?

In my country there's an Island which they barter goods, no money included, item to item transaction. But it's in a rural country side and most of the people engaged in the system are farmers, fisherman and other livelihoods around a jungle or in the sea. The local government is letting them do this but once in a week, only on Sundays. At first I was shocked, couldn't believed what I saw, and then came to realized that those people where just living their lives how they wanted to, simple and transparent with no things to worries such as tax etc.

The barter scheme has another huge drawback - if working capital appears, then with a huge delay. Yes, there will be no business development without money - can you imagine how a full cycle of a barter scheme would look like, for example, a project to modernize blast furnaces at a steel plant? No, I’m not saying that this is not possible, it’s possible, but then any investment project will stretch for years due to the large time costs for the chain of barter transactions to achieve a result. And this = degradation of production, followed by degradation of the economy and the peak by the Stone Age

Unless our civilization degrades to the primitive level, we will never come back to the system of barter. Such a system won't work in current economic conditions because (1) people are already aware of the existence of money, which means it would be stupid not to use more advanced technology, (2) even if humanity forgets for some reason there has been money, it will recreate it naturally because the most marketable good will emerge once again after humanity find out that indirect exchange is more convenient than a direct one. The other reason why we are unlikely to come back to the system of barter is the fact that there are already some specializations (services) that cannot be easily exchanged for goods. For example, you are a math teacher who wants to buy a car. In the system of barter, you would need to find a car seller who would like to learn math in exchange for a car. Doesn't it sound ridiculous? Money was created for reason.

inefficient, makes it more difficult, and takes longer. despite all that is done with blockchain, barter is not a solution.


impossible, because bartering is very difficult in modern society that prefers efficiency. they prefer to use currency as a payment system. instead of using items to get another items.

Definitely not an easy task especially if you were talking about bartering multiple items or large items that are going to be logistically impossible to move around. That's why the gold standard has been created to prevent the moving of gold since its a nightmare to do.

Maybe it could serve as another alternative that would be permitted by local governments are even international trading of goods and services. Then people like us could utilize the bartering system as another option.

Maybe a decentralized type of service that evaluate different items and make sure that arbitraging wouldn't be that impactful negatively.

It's really difficult not to mention that barter system can only work in such a limited ways, not to mention that our supply chain and our economy is heavily dependent on the current monetary system so we really can't support barter system. Plus wouldn't the greedy capitalist be mad about this kind of system because they won't be able to maximize their profits?

The barter scheme, theoretically, can take place in the modern world. For example, after the collapse of the USSR, due to currency instability, galloping inflation and total deficits, barter schemes worked. But it was ... how to say ... such a leap into the Middle Ages For example - the path of a pack of cigarettes to the counter of a store looks comical - for example, 10 carriages of cigarettes, exchanged for a lot of cars ... The owner of a batch of cars, became the owner of 10 carriages cigarettes. Then, conventionally, 1 carriage was exchanged for 100 tons of fertilizers, the owner of the fertilizers received a carriage of cigarettes. The carriage of cigarettes was changed, for example, for a new Mercedes and $ 30,000 (everything is given exclusively for example), and then the new owner of the carriage of cigarettes handed them over for sale, for example, on the scale of 1 city - tobacco kiosks, grocery stores, pubs, restaurants, etc. ...
How do you like this scheme? The advantage of money is the ability to express in it any measurable price of any product or service! Barter makes it very difficult ... But then again - in times like this when the country's global economy is almost completely destroyed and money does not fulfill its functions - barter will work

We have a small informal market, close to my town ...where people barter with goods and services and it works very well. Can this be scaled to a country the size of the US?... I seriously doubt it.... (Transportation cost is too expensive and transfer of goods between people over long distances becomes too tedious and time consuming)

Image if you barter 2000 Carrots for 2000 eggs and you have to transport that between Miami and New York!    Also, who will determine the value of the goods and services...? (buyer / seller agreements with escrow)?

Let's not go back to the dark ages.... to try and reinvent the wheel.  

barter system guve you good way, to have a thing you need. if you want to have something, you just spend what you have. and this method cant be use for people who dont have any useful thing.
people already taste money, it can be what you want or what you need. you can have money with work, or provide service. you can have that thing with just spend a paper. but it some place, they still use barter to have other thing.

In my nation there is a barter system, an organization did it and basically instead of money you get barter credits, which is basically the same thing if you ask me but there are discounts which means you sell for discount as well as buy for discount because nobody really deals with money there and only in credits. It goes from one person to another at all times and never held at the organization's headquarters or warehouse or whatever. Simply put you have a farm?

You sell the goods for barter credit, then you use that credit to get seeds, tractor, water or whatever you want to and once again raise your crops if you want to. It doesn't work very well and not everyone uses it and the volume daily for them is about a million dollars or a bit higher. Sure that is not "nothing" but compared to how much fiat is used daily.. it is not even 0.00001% of what fiat is used for. Hence I believe barter is not really wanted by people neither. Can we switch? Sure, but do we want to? I don't think so.

I do not about the barter system being a retro since the village my parents live in India, they do have a barter system even now in place. Which does mean that some communities are not so eager to let the system go. This method could be so much more beneficial if done on a bigger scale definately. Using blockchain would also help a lot, people can also sign contracts there and at the same time farmers for example can exchange their vegetables or fruits for pesticides etc, this could be a small system still in place for sure. Not reverting but using the system as well. People already exchange cryptocurrencies using third parties, they can do that using this system as well. Might be fun to see tho.

How exactly would people be reverting to the barter system? This is a system that has stopped for long, and I don’t see the world going back to this same system again, can’t imagine how possible that is going to be. And moreover the fiat system that we have been using for so many years now has been having issues for long, but no one talks about the world reverting to trade by barter system. So, what makes you think that if the government should release the CBDC, it is going to be like that?

It is not going to be like that, and for your info, the CBDC is still this same Fiat system that you have been using since you were born, nothing new at all, they are just giving you the same thing, except that it has the word digital in it this time.

Firstly, I don't think there's a single country that is fully transitioning to CBDC as of yet. They have their fiat and start introducing the CBDC as a digital representation of that fiat, but it's really only a handful of places, and fiat is still a big deal. Secondly, I honestly don't think that many people care about privacy issues when it comes to financial behavior. Also, when some countries turn to CBDCs, it doesn't mean that all fiat if going extinct, so the most natural solution for those who are unhappy with the CBDC would be to use a reputable fiat currency like dollar and make transactions in cash. There are also decentralized cryptos that can be used as money for these cases.
I believe that it's hypothetically possible that civilizations will revert to barter, but only under apocalyptic circumstances when nothing useless can truly be of value and people use barter simply to survive.

As technology develops, perhaps the barter system will go further and no longer function properly when with current technology it can reach far more P2P transactions. Even though the CBDC offer is being heralded by our government, it will certainly be very difficult to avoid it other than conducting transactions such as cryptocurrencies without any party interfering with payment activities or the delivery of an item.

Personally I wouldn't say the barter system is bad and so on, it's just that it's a transaction system that has evolved until now and finally changed with the times. We cannot avoid the barter system because that is where there is an alternative payment system, both with paper money, and cryptocurrencies, which are currently the ones we use the most for various transactions.

If society is on something heavy and sees mass suicide as the only escape then yeah it's a solution.
Try even picturing how air travel or purchasing a car will work, and without the easy way out of it, only 50% of us are men (yeah, that's the misogynist in me speaking)  


The perfect world you would love to live in! Would you choose that over using a CBDC?


Yeah just great, only heaven on earth examples where barter would work.

I have another great example of barter when a bear follows you, you throw him a bag of biscuits and it lets you live (maybe!?), a thing you would not be able to do either with cash or crypto, so it's clear the barter system is definitely superior.

What type of civilization would the world practice with the barter system of centuries ago! This is not doable in this present generation, worst case scenario,  people will still stick to fiat even if crypto transaction was not accepted, cbdc is an optional payment method which will not completely eliminate the use of fiat, people can always decide which one to use, it is not mandatory.

First of all, I think you are missing something, that the government is introducing the CBDC doesn’t mean that we are going to stop making use of the fiat currency that’s currently being used now. It doesn’t stop anything, the current fiat and paper money will still be used, and CBDC will just be another one that kind of complements it. So if anyone should say that they don’t like the CBDC, they should simply continue making use of the typical fiat that they have been using.

Moreover I don’t even see any difference between the fiat and the CBDC, it’s just the same thing, ; holding CBDC is just like you’re still holding the fiat, because it is paired to fiat and is just the same, except that maybe it is going to help banks to process transactions faster than they do this time around.

The barter system continues to exist but most of the time, people want money in exchange of their items. You can find in some marketplaces about barter system, but I believe they usually end up selling it in exchange of fiat, because it is hard to find someone who has the item you want to exchange it with, and if the other party likes the item you are offering. This is why the barter system is something not sustainable in my opinion.

Agreed, when a pandemic strikes, someone in our country devises a barter system with the goal of assisting people in need of food in exchange for something else. I understand that returning to the barter system will be difficult, but we can do it at the same time because the barter system is extremely beneficial to those who wants those items and cannot obtain them without money. As of right now, no one wants to be back in the barter stage because it is extremely difficult; money is everything at this time.

Broadly speaking, there will be no return to the barter system, but in reality until now there are still many who use the barter system, but basically everything is judged on the amount of fiat. For example, we often exchange cars, but one of them has to give extra money, because the selling value of one of the cars is higher

Never!
This wont happen even on my dreams because government is already existed and we know on how fiat serves as the the monetary system which its impossible for us to revert back.We are now on an era where everything is accessible on the fastest  payment system as possible which in just common sense then its really
that not possible for us to go back into those old system.

The NFT barter system may work but it is going to be very hard to handle all the regulations related stuff. Like let's say a farmer could sell 1000 corns as an NFT, and the buyer could have that NFT and could sell that to someone else by splicing it, could create 100 corns for 10 NFT's instead and sell it to different people and then it could move wherever until it reaches latest destination and whoever wants to execute the physical change could do so just when it reaches the end.

It is a very difficult process, it requires insane amount of regulations and it will not happen because when did we really leaped that much forward in tech to help people when there are middle man who could earn a grand deal of amount who bribe the politicians to not regulate the markets. So, it is not going to happen, it "could" work in theory but in practice it is not going to happen.

At my place, you can easily barter "saleable" used items for new ones for the same price. I don't think it's very primitive but it really is to this day. We can't forever make big cities a model in judging something because life doesn't just exist there and in the countryside we can still do it very easily. The barter system only requires trust between the two parties, either through escrow or directly. But as usual, here we can do barter without having to be afraid of the risk of scam because it is usually done with known people.

Bartering may no longer be suitable for modern financial system where everyone will be facilitated by digital financial innovation “centralized or decentralized”. But for underdeveloped countries, especially in rural areas, this system is still ongoing, both because of culture and because of other things.

I would not count on its possibility given the complexity of barter in its application.

While on paper barter may seem harmless, there are tons of implications with knowing the value of 'barter' in the exchange of goods. Barter system can be difficult in ascertaining its value on the market given that there is no way of knowing the 'standard' prize of goods. In addition, it is also susceptible of scam where a person may trade something that he does not own (e.g. only a possessor of the thing and not the owner thereof).

This may give rise to legal complications that could easily be avoided if were the standard of exchange is fiat!

The only system that is kind of similar to a classic barter system might be trades in NFTs. I don't see a chance for physical good vs physical good exchanges at scale. The issue with NFTs is that they would have to be acknowledged by government in order to also represent blockchain based legal rights against the underlying assets. Hence, it is pretty much impossible to circumvent CBDC regulation as private contracts can't rule out public law. Sure you could exchange minor assets, let's say a smartphone against a PC or something without using public infrastructure, and I believe such exchanges do even exist. But as soon as we are talking assets that require any form of registration, that's where we would be running into a deadlock.
Anyway, an interesting thought that is worth being explored further.

When money was created it's difficult to go back to an old style anymore.
It's true that we have a lot of items now in the market from a new kind of shaver to everything that is plastic. But, it will be difficult to satisfy the other end if he have most of the items that we need.
China as an example had been producing a lot of different goods and it's like almost everything is "Made in China" nowadays, I doubt they will go back to a civilization of trades even if they have the upper hand.
There's the question of "What else can you offer us?".

CBDC will not be the only method of payment that you are forced to use. They are creating it for an alternative to crypto basically, we still have fiat both in banknotes and also digitally in our bank accounts as well. So, you will still be able to pay cash or with credit card as usual without any change in that regard as far as I am aware. You could totally ignore CBDC if you want to and use the old method, or could go with crypto debit cards as well which are getting more and more famous. These days crypto debit cards have huge cashback rewards as well so you are saving up a lot on small stuff, like how netflix is getting 50% back and all that.

So, all in all I would say that barter will not be needed at all, it is a very old system and very rarely used in small sectors. I had something like that offered, a barter credit for half worth of my house while other half would be in cash, but I rejected it since I am not a business and can't buy anything with it, so it is out there but very rare.

I do not think they will use a barter system as we have good technology that supports the payment system to be better than before. I agree with @paxmao explanation that in some instances, such as jail, they can use a barter system as money is not available and can trigger chaos between them.

But in real life, the barter system is hard to use as people need to meet each other and then use the barter system. At the same time, we can use the technology to make a transaction and give easiness to us to send and receive the funds.

But it is interesting if that is applied in the blockchain and I wonder how it will look.

Barter was never really removed imo? There are still trades or exchanges that happen as long as the two parties agree to the trade afaik. Of course, it's to the small minority though. Still, I don't think it should be implemented again in the first place, though it being an alternative due to some extreme circumstances is a possibility. I reckon people would still prefer to use the centralized system that we have now rather than a barter system. The barter system imo, has more problems on its own after all compared to what we have right now and it probably looks like a pain to do compared to simple transactions we have now a days.

If we talk of the general civilization, I don't think it will ever go back to the barter system. That would be several steps backward in terms of progress as a society. But if we consider the wildest of possibilities, if ever an apocalyptic age indeed arrives, the barter system must be the most effective. It could naturally become the only means of trade.

But I'd like to point out that the barter system is still existing until now. Especially in rural areas and other geographically isolated villages, the barter system is still very much alive.


I agree.

During the height of the pandemic, the barter system somehow became a thing here in my city. Jobs were lost, businesses closed, movements were severely limited resulting to the lack of livelihood opportunities. In other words, cash became more precious, if not unavailable to many.

This was how the barter system became an option. In exchange of something that you need, you will offer something you don't need or need much which others are looking for. But this is not limited to goods. Services are also allowed.

The platform used was simply the popular free social media like Facebook. Although it might be better if there is really a platform solely intended for it, the advantage of the common social media platforms is that almost everybody is there.

Civilization does sometimes revert to what you describe as barter, but only happens in certain very peculiar cases. Think of, for example, the prison system: cash is not allowed but cigarettes and other goods are. These are "fungible", scarce, represent value and are demanded, so there you go. Also in cases in which a currency goes into hyperinflation the currency becomes diamonds for large amounts, gold for lesser amounts and almost anything for daily expenses.

So all the civilizations as a whole would not normally revert to barter, but it can happen and does happen in bit of the world and certain situations.

The only reason CBDC's up for discussion, and eventually will be implemented, is because we're too far past the barter system and you can't go back. Cash transactions was a replacement for the barter system but most banking is digital, including crypto, so the government can easily implement a CBDC system because the pitch is easy to deliver. Digital banking already exists, you really on government backed currency, so switch to CBDC to eliminate a need for a private bank.

Realistically, though, the private bank just becomes the government.

Minting your own currency is illegal. It is possible that someday in the future minting your own digital asset could be illegalized.

This would leave a barter system the main available option in a scenario where people could not find CBDC support for their business, employment or financial transactions.

There have been faint rumblings of a cashless society being the vision for our future for many years now. If a cashless society and CBDC, is our vision for the future, people could be legally barred from minting their own physical or digital currencies. A barter system could become the only available option. Unless it too became illegalized.

I probably should have outlined this better in OP.

If a recession or crash is expected and high inflation occurs. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to begin some type of barter system platform. As an alternative in case other options go down.

Myanmar has recently had issues with banking and electronic financial services being shut down. On a side note, could it be worthwhile to have some infrastructure in place to support barter and trade in the event of a natural disaster or crisis which negatively affects electronic payment?

No way it would happen. The use of currency has been so ingrained in the heads of the people nowadays that you cannot really take it out of their system. There has been so much dependency on the idea of cash and currencies that it will be hard for people to do things the old way. The barter system still exists, although at a much smaller scale, and not mainly seen on basic necessities and such. People of today's time knows how "money" and "value" works, and would probably be haggling their way to the right trade if no other option but barter exists, and might even be a start of a lot of conflicts.

Not really.

I don't think that the problem is with currencies per se. Decentralized cryptos and precious metals are excellent stores of value and much more convenient than barter.

Barter is an archaic system. It could work on small scales but price discovery and liquidity would simply be way too backwards for it to actually work on a large scale.

Yeah it does still exist in some part of small country as well but we are definitely not going to revert back to barter system. Humans are evolving as we speak, in so many different aspect including monetary aspect so at some point the whole barter system is just going to disappear and people are just going to use currency as payment system


Probably not for now but by the time that everything is fully functional and ready to use, that would have been 10-20 years in the future so honestly those elders will be 'gone' by then

A barter system is incredibly dumb and such a wasteful use of resources, people created money to solve this purpose but you think it's a good idea to go back? Nobody is being forced to use CBDC's and they will sit alongside the current financial system instead of replacing it. The two extremes are not "stone age" bartering versus cutting edge CBDC blockchain currencies, there is lots of ground in the middle. Only in places like China will people be vulnerable to the whims of the government when it comes to cryptocurrency, just like they are already. In fact, I doubt we will see much uptake of these digital currencies created by central banks precisely because people do not trust them over the thousands of pre-existing cryptocurrencies that are much less vulnerable to manipulation by greedy politicians.

Unless a cataclysm occurred I do not think we will go back to the barter system, the barter system is the most primitive way we have to exchange goods and services and it depends heavily on the coincidence of wants, basically I need to want something you have while at the same time you need to want something I have and agree independently on how much of each product we should exchange for the exchange to be fair.

Money resolves this problem as everyone wants more of a medium of exchange you can use everywhere, eliminating the coincidence of wants, while it also acts as a unit of account in which everything can be priced against it, so while going back to a barter economy could be done at a small scale, I doubt any country or community above a particular threshold number can implement it successfully.

Somehow too many think only at big cities. Not all the population lives there.

Barter system still exist at a certain degree. There are still people who work for the food they receive and some extra goods (probably food/ingredients) to get home. At country side people can easily handle without paper money if they want to.

And imho no, central bank will not replace all fiat with CBDCs, that's not viable. There are plenty of people with poor or no internet. There are elderly people who are unable to learn the technology.
I expect CBDCs replace VISA/MasterCard as we know it, not paper fiat.

Returning to a barter payment system cannot be the way out in the current situation. The barter system has always been the most backward and has always existed before the invention of money, let alone paper money.
The stablecoins of the central banks of states will work even much more efficiently than conventional currencies, and therefore it makes no sense to go back to the prehistoric era.

Going back to the barter system is a hell no. CBDs is obviously what it is a total government surveillance tool to monitor, control, manipulate, decide and influence the monetary reforms of its citizens and with the exposure on cryptocurrency thus far there would definitely be a revolt in near future because this CBDC would become a treat to many but the Barter system would likely not be an option

The technology has made us advanced and we can make payments at the ease of one click but what's the fun of going back in time for the rebirth of the old payment system known as barter exchange? Suppose you want to buy rice meals but you have wooden plates at your home and you will have to find the person who will have rice meals and want to have wooden plates from you.For these kind of situations you need to fulfill the two conditions and this is not possible in the current scenario.We have more advanced technology like btc where you don't need to worry about double coincidence of wants and whatever you want just pay it with LN within few seconds and no third party involvement.So why think about traditional methods.

If we talk about CDBC then it's again central control and it's nothing else but just digital fiat and even if they use Blockchain technology they will not provide any freedom to you and moreover they are just tools to make government more profits and whenever they want to make changes in it they can.



Government and central banks are trying to make people fool with their CDBC launch while most of them are figuring out how to explore Blockchain technology and make it fully central control and what do you think they will do when they launch it or why do they fear bitcoin? They want only profits and freedom of funds is not a good option for them.You yourself needs to be aware about how to use money with security and safeguard yourself from rising inflation so have btc stacked.

Who are the society? They are like the government because most of them follow the government. Only few people are knowledgeable enough to know how CBDCs are, some people even do not care and encouraging others. If these kind of people see CBDCs more useful than fiat in one way or the other, they will even prefer to go for CBDCs over fiat while barter is not what they can even think to go back into, no more barter adoption.

There is nothing like the extinction of fiat, people have also preferred fiat since many decades ago, but knowing excellently that fiat depreciates, while CBDCs are not different in fucntion but also subjected to government control. What people are mostly care about is money, not privacy. Only few people that know about privacy care about it. People that do not want to use CBDCs will stick to fiat. Also I do not see how because of CBDCs, people will use barter to trade again. People prefer convenience.

Gold and the likes in the olden days before fiat make the world turning aways from barter, fiat further reduced barter, fiat won't extinct. If people do not want to use CBDCs, they will continue to use fiat. Most people do not even know there is privacy while making use of money all they know is to use money to do something that can make them earn more money.

Money was invented for a reason.The barter system was dumped by humanity thousands of years ago.
Anyway...
Let's dump money completely and go back to the prehistoric era of huntsman and gatherers living in the caves. This was the "good old days" of the human kind.Pure nostalgia.
No inequality.No god damn banks.No god damn money.No material possessions and consumerism.
What's not to like?
The barter system is awesome.I really want to exchange my chicken for a cow or a horse.I really hope that someone will agree on such trade.
Creating a barter system that is based on the blockchain?
Yeah,why not dump Bitcoin and watch the Bitcoin price collapse to zero.All the Bitcoiners will be really happy.
 

I completely agree with this.

I don't even know how Hydrogen came up with that idea. Bartering is typical of primitive societies and is impossible to practice on a large scale in modern societies.

You can exchange with another person one thing for another, but on a large scale, let's see how you exchange a piano for apples. Or for a mixture of apples, shoes and adhesive tape. You probably need those three things and someone else needs a piano, but the three things you need are not in the same person's possession, unless they barter beforehand to get what you want to give them the piano.

In short, no.

It's already coming back with the so-called "utility token" where users have to convert Bitcoin into racing token to play racing games, and then convert to monster token to play monster games, etc. What happens is users have to go to exchange quite often = inefficiency & volatility. It should be just using Bitcoin to play any games.

If you are de-platformed by CBDC then perhaps a barter system is your option.  De-platformed is like a monetary sanction to a business or an individual. If the CBDC can do this then there is really a reason to just buy BTC and keep buying to be prepared. There is a chance that countries that are democratic will turn into socialism.

Governments wouldn't be able to impose the CBDC overnight, just like China they were doing it first in a city and then gradually implement it in another. It may take more years for it to spread, some countries didn't have any plans yet for CBDC.
 

No! Barter based system is not coming back. Some people may choose to do it but that will never be widespread. CBDCs are a great tool for surveillance but a law abiding citizen doesn't have to worry about it. People with massive amounts of black money must get worried and rightfully so.

Corruption is a big problem in today's date. CBDC is an effective tool to end such corruption. It will simplify common people's life. Barter system is not coming back, rather there is a chance to reform society might be coming our way with CBDCs.

No matter what happens with banks or CBDCs, there's no way in hell a single country--much less the entire world--is ever going back to a system of barter. 

Money as we know it has evolved over centuries to become what it is today, and I see absolutely no reason why anyone would even consider taking a monumental step backward to implement a system that was like 100 steps removed from the present day in terms of that evolution.  There would have to be nuclear warhead strikes on a global scale for that to happen, and by that I mean the population would have to be reduced to the point where governments have been obliterated and there's no monetary system left.

If you want to barter, do it as a hobby with like-minded people.  It just won't work anymore as a generally accepted form of trade.

It probably wouldn't work either way. There's the argument that governments might like things being untraceable for a few reasons: one of the main ones being so their donors can launder money and I could imagine a lot of politicians may have bought "private" or potentially illegal things in the past they'd want to keep hidden.

A barter based system would rely solely on how much you trust other people though or how much they trust you (or the contacts of both) and possibly how much time they have when a CBDC could just automate everything.

Central banks have announced CBDCs (central bank issued digital currencies). Some have voiced concerns of CBDCs being tools of surveillance and control. If society experiences CBDCs and decides they do not like them, will it be possible to revert to a barter based system of trade?

A barter based system could be more susceptible to fraud and scams. Yet would allow for financial transaction outside of CBDC regulation. This could become a necessary step if some individuals and businesses are deplatformed by CBDC. Some businesses can only survive by paying workers under the table.

In practice a barter based system could function similar to ebay with an independent and reliable 3rd party form of escrow. (Blockchain based of course, we aren't complete savages and primitives  )

Could a barter system be a worthwhile form of trade past the year 2022. Perhaps the next big leap forward will be a retro move backward into the past.