Automated technology and abundant resources through sustainable resource management is how it works. You don’t need money if you already have what you need through renewable and sustainable systems.

Who exactly is managing the resources? That takes time and effort. Could such a system, which would necessarily be built on top of a dynamic and varying ecosystem for natural resources, really be able to run smoothly and perpetually with no human oversight?

Also, money doesn’t only enable efficient trade for the things we need; it also enables efficient trade for the things we want. How would a moneyless (or tradeless) system accommodate people’s desires for things not strictly necessary for survival? Who makes the call for whether something is necessary for survival or not? Scarce (finite) resources have limited supply by definition, and if more than one person wants them, those people may not all be able to have all of said resources that they want. Prices and trade (made efficient by real money) allow for an orderly, negotiated, voluntary distribution of scarce resources.

People will still want things that are in limited supply, whether they need them or not. Voluntary trade and dynamic prices make this possible. Unless and until every resource imaginable is effectively infinite, this is how the system works.

Since you don’t need money, you don’t need laws that protect the acquisition of it either (i.e. Trademark, copyright, patent). You also have no reason to trade, since everything you need is provided.

As I said before, you still need money, because you still won’t have everything you want even if by some extraordinary miracle you do have everything you need. Human desires don’t go away. We want stuff. In some cases, we invent stuff. Then other people want that stuff. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Trade is a core feature of any functioning society, precisely because the resources we all want are finite. There is always a reason to trade unless and until all resources are effectively infinite.

I think it is that most people don’t know what money really is. Civilization did just fine before money came along. When the people needed food, they grew/hunted/gathered it. When people needed shelter, they built it. They didn’t bother with money to do this, they just gathered the resources needed and did it. Money is just a tool for controlling access to resources.

I agree that most people don’t know what money really is today, but I disagree with your definition. Money is not a tool for controlling access to resources (that’s what property ownership is for, also critical to any society based on scarce resources). Real money is only ONLY a way to facilitate trade more efficiently. I don’t want to have to pay you in cows just because you only need cows, because I don’t have cows. I only have shoes, but you don’t need shoes. So we use silver or gold instead, because it is rare, real, divisible, and easy to identify as authentic. You can use the silver or gold to buy the things that you want, and I can use it to buy what I want. This is what makes it useful as money.

To the degree that “civilization did just fine before money came along” and “they didn’t bother with money to [find/use/build what they needed],” they succeeded in spite of the lack of money, not in any way because of it. Do you really think that everybody did everything on their own, without negotiating (key word) with others? Not everyone is good at harvesting raw materials. Not everyone is good at cultivating farmland. Not everyone is good at preparing food. Not everyone is good at making and administering medicine. Trade (and money) allows each person to focus on becoming especially efficient at a subset of skills, which they can then trade with others in exchange for the goods and services they want.

In small, self-sustaining societies, barter is common and can certainly work, since there is usually at least one person to be found in the group who specializes in any necessary skill. Maybe not everything can happen as fast as everyone would like, but there’s at least one go-to guy (or girl) for farming, cooking, cleaning, tailoring, doctoring, animal care, and anything else–often even luxury items or services. Such societies may function without money, but the introduction of money (real money, not debt-as-money) can only make things more efficient. Real money is not a government invention; it systematically arises out of a genuine human need. There is a reason that just about every society ever develops some kind of a currency.

If you need money, you are a slave to it because in a system that requires money, you can’t get what you need unless you have it.

Again, this has nothing to do with money. This has to do with the reality of finite resources. The stuff we need and want is not unlimited. Whether we have money to facilitate efficient trade or not, this is still the case. Nobody ever needs money, per se. They need (or want) the stuff they plan to buy with money.

Your belief in the necessity for money is one of indoctrination. You’ve been told all of your life that money is necessary and you take it as fact.

No, it’s not indoctrination, it’s a solution to a real problem. It’s a way to streamline trade, which itself is a way for finite resources to change hands without violence. In a world of limited, scarce stuff, trade is far better than the alternative. Money makes it easy to trade.

Apes, dolphins, and other intelligent animals already live under a moneyless economy. They help themselves by helping each other to improve each other member’s condition. It’s a collaborative society versus a competitive one.

They do live in a moneyless economy, true. But if you think that nature is not predominantly competitive, you need to watch some more Animal Planet or National Geographic or something. There is a reason that natural selection and concept of “survival of the fittest” are so universally explained by observing nature. Yes, some groups of animals act together for the protection of the group, but this is hardly altruism. This is an effort to continue their own species. They still have to fight with other animals (often those within their own small group, let alone their species) for the limited resources they deal with, namely territory and food.

It was humans that realized they could put themselves ahead by exploiting the many that they could achieve even greater prosperity by using money as the control mechanism. The golden rule applies: “He who has the gold, makes the rules”. Money allows people to concentrate that money and thus, consolidate power. So long as money is in use, people will attempt to leverage it to exploit the many and elevate themselves above the rest.

As a rule, people will attempt to leverage anything they can to exploit others and elevate themselves above the rest. Money is not necessary to make this happen, and its removal will not prevent it from happening. It will only make voluntary trade more cumbersome, which to me seems more like a step in the wrong direction.

All this being said, I do believe that the fiat money system we have, where the dollar is worth what the government says it is simply because they say it, and new money is constantly introduced into the economy in the form of debt by fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve, is absolutely terrible and the source (or at least the enabler) of a huge portion of our problems, and at least most of what OWS is currently protesting, whether or not they can identify it as such. I do believe that money should not be able to affect political outcomes, since then you end up with corporatism, destructive regulations, endless inflation, etc. All bad.

However, the solution isn’t to remove money from the equation. That will do nothing. The solution is to remove government power from the equation, so that no matter how much money lobbyists or businesses spend to buy power, there is simply no power for them to buy.