Why is a barter economy defined as poor?

Wall street defines GDP in cash terms, as it is presumed that all
work and value are denominated in currency, but what if work and
value are not paid? Does that make the work nonexistant? It strikes
me on seeing such economies functioning, that non-cash economies are
capable of providing outstanding quality of life, with food goods
and work traded in extended family units that themselves provide for
the social welfare of the members by long term trust and goodwill.

Why is it not done by economists to value barter trade in cash terms
and add it to the GDP. By economic terms, people who have no cash
must be dead, as they can't pay to live. A stay at home spouse with
the children is not valued at minimum wage childcare equivalents.

Methinks were we to assign minimum values to the barter economies of
the world, we'd discover that the "poor" world is less poor and
that wall street creates less value than it steals, by misnaming
the elements of basic life in cash terms.

but to answer your main question;

the multinational corporations and other world-rapists find it very hard to electronically transfer the wealth of a society into their accounts when the wealth of that society is based on chickens rather than coins.

I can't help but notice the incredible cost to have the luxury of
owning a horse these days. One must "buy" feed, straps, gear, vet
bills, land, transport and all sorts of things that make owning
a horse only for rich people in the "rich" world.

Then in the poor world, a farmer uses a horse in place of a tractor
and has all of the rich man's trappings, guised in economic invisibility... yet a horse is a horse, and it seems to own a horse
is an equal commodity.

I agree your point, yet they claim to be mathematicians and
econometrically wise people, these bankers, yet they can't do their
sums... educated to the point of stupidity, these bozos can't
actually add up economic value... as indeed it is political economy,
and to reduce the non-cash factors to zero is the republican
imperialists basis for undermining the state... so to pay your
mathematicians to not count chickens stinks terribly of bad science
and poor education.

because that isn't what matters to THEM...

it is not that they reduce non-cash factors to zero...it is that they do not even glance, nay, nary a look that way. it is of no interest. there is no profit there. there is no graft to be handled. to them, it is the same as counting the argon molecules in the atmosphere of those countries...yes, it is there, but so what. there is no profit in argon, and argon cannot fuel the engine that they seek to fuel. it is useless, not worth counting. they are not interested in measuring the wealth of a country in the denomination of a barter society. they cannoot rape a barter society, at least not in the same manner.

i realize i may be differing with your interpretation on a matter of semantics, but i do believe it is worth noting.

I feeel inspired by what you said. Then where in the government
sematic value chain do they start re-interpreing banking indicators
of the measured weaith that "IS" important to them, and using those
same indicators to mean some things they do not.

This is soooo root to the economic imperialism, IMO, and how the
wall street/IMF/world bank race has come to decline wealth and the
need for "upgrade" or structural change, or the need for everyone
to build a 6 lane motorway and commute 100 miles to work. The
invisible plan is clearly modelled on the lives of the planners,
and this is a recipe for disaster as long as it ignores and
discounts the equality of Argon.

Everyone on earth cannot have a refrigerator and a car given the
reality of resources. God help us using a model that postulates
an infinity without condept of the limited public goods like air,
water and natural land. My native spirit is worth
nothing, and the number of bricks i can lift is worth everything
only in terms of pay for hours, not in life or wealth value.

imo, it is let's grab all we can, so we can last as long as we can.

trying to value every smidgen is part of the problem. besides if they can count it they can tax it.

by any standards. Barter just can't handle transactions beyond the smallest. Even primitive cultures have developed "money" to handle transactions.

Defining "barter" itself gets a little tricky. It's almost impossible to directly barter things and so some accounting is often done. From there, it's not a big stretch to have a cash underground economy.

In any case, it's difficult, or impossible, to find and account for all these transactions.

"someone" is doing childcare for all children under "care" age for
365 days a year... if we simply add up the number of children and
count the hours, we'd have a fair adjustment to economics of barter,
something we've all benefitted from yet not accounted for.

I have come from the POV you represent to live in a place where barter is very common. For it to work, you need a longgg term
culture where people have been around the same place, families and
such for generations. My grandfather took care of your sheep whilst
you were away at the war, and you help my family build our house out
of timber we've cut from the local forest.

Sure, everyone dabbles in cash as well, and hard costs are exactly
that, but so much of life can be reduced to trade-in-kind, and such
trade is untaxed, (cheaper for that), and leads to a sort of goodwill
that is not valued in the "rich" cash sense.

The cash economy is black and white, but in the shades of grey that
are real life, we all owe one to our mother... and does not barter
begin in that feminine shade of grey?

The U.S. is a society built on mobility. Who cares what someone did for my grandfather 50 years ago, I don't live in that town, I don't know those people, hell, it is near impossible to be middle class unless you are willing to move around to get an education and to progress in your career.

<i>you help my family build our house out
of timber we've cut from the local forest.
</i>

No, I'd probably get out my rifle and stop you from cutting what is left of our local forest, but no doubt this is proof of how un-evolved I am. I just don't want to let our forests go, which is what is happening in barter societies. In the end, every last tree is cut down for firewood or what have you. When the last goat eats the last thorn tree in Kenya, where will they be? I can't tell them how to run their country, I can't even run my own, but I do know that traditional society isn't working either. I've seen it with my own eyes.

We need something new -- capitalism wasn't it, indeed, it has proven more destruction even than past practices, but going backwards probably isn't going to help.

Caveat: I reserve the right to change my mind if you are right and I am wrong.

Mobility is a temporary phenomenon, as any mathematician can show
given a database of the earths population. If every one is to have
american level automobile habits, the earth will be in serious
destruction by pollution and pavement of green spaces. The american way is not sustainable. We *live* in that world. Mobility is an illusion of the moment and less of the future, once the one subsidizer (american military) gradually bankrupts in its pursuit
to artificially subsidize colonial transport and media networks.

I think the USA has reached the apogee of its neoliberal captalistic
tide in 2000, and the empire will strink from now on... and in this
regard, we've to settle on a multipolar brand of capitalistic
global leadership that completely removes US hegemony from the
world stage, as the very economic policies supported are irrational
given serious market saturation... the way of life is not sustainable
and will be curtailed by rational market expectations.

Your views on forest are because you live in a populated area.

When you live in a place like romania where massive forests are
everywhere and your stereotype of forest doom is misguided given
the context. It is american country where the forests
are in danger, speak for america over a place unknown, were populations have peacefully coexisted with their forested lands for
hundreds of years without outside conquoring armies and invaders.

The local romanina trees are impressive and the wood structures
enviable. Deforestation is a global, local problem, in that the
laws of each geography must economically prevent the matter, and
global neoliberalism is only theory at best, advising the local
legal regimen. In the regions of the context, forests are lush and
being restored.

Capitalism is just fine, as long as we temper it to value the
whole economic value chain including childbearing and other nonpaid
delivered work.

If the forests are doing well in Romania, that's terrific. In the places I have traveled, the forests are at very high risk and vanished altogether in many places. One environmentalist I spoke with in Kenya says it is pointless to try any longer to save the forest and that he will henceforth put his efforts into other endeavors -- it all sounded very familiar and so much like what so many of us are going through in the U.S. I don't think you will find many to agree that deforestation is not a serious worldwide issue. It is certainly an issue in North America, South America, and Africa, so that's three continents right there where trees are in danger.

The problem may be masked in some areas by fake forests which are really just timber plantations that do not provide habitat for much of anything. See under the state of Mississippi. You might as well drive through the state of Illinois and tell yourself there is prairie left because you've passed a lot of open cornfields. (Not that you would do this, but I certainly know people who do.)

Certainly, we think it's worse in North America because it looks like we are going to lose all or most of our remaining hardwood trees in a few year's time; I am not clear why global warming and the spread of these diseases wouldn't sooner or later affect Europe. It is a small world after all, and I don't believe mobility is a thing of the past at all. I just bought a plane ticket to Europe for less than what I paid in the early 1980s. Where once people had family members spread across several states, they are now spread across several nations and continents for economic reasons. This won't end any time soon. It's a global economy and a global society, and people are not going to sit down and starve if they can get a job in another country.

If you think child-bearing is work that should have a price tag on it, this is a completely separate issue, but most people either have children for love or by accident, not for a money motive. I am not clear on why you would want to put a price tag on raising a child, not sure where you are going with this...I would want to consider this carefully because it seems like the law of unintended consequences could come into play.

Seriously if you do work for youself that doesn't count for GDP either. The problem is it's hard to measure the value of something that isn't bought and sold. If you pay someone to do something and he pays you there's GDP. If you barder it's hard to get a refference point to say how much was produced.

Oh yeah, and you don't pay taxes either. I think you're theoretically supposed to, but of coarse there is no way to force you. Big time cronies do it all the time.

There are laws preventing some of it. For example in 1800s some big bosses would try to run mining towns on thier own currency. So people would barter for this currency and avoid taxes. Uncle Sam doesn't like that.

It is really a job, just like growing food. In today's pervasive
computing world, a software model exists that can fully replicate,
down to the chicken and egg, the microcosm of economics on this
planet, yet we feign ignorance, and that these things rise and
fall with the whims of bankers.

We export economic imperialism and our model of specialization
towards a military industrial overpopulation earth-destroying society
as if it were a priviledge. The dismal science does not impress
they have forgotten the pillar of liberalism on which they sit,
these economists, and that the ability to teach and learn economics
and mathematics, is based on the "political" word part of "political
economy". The job is to count everything, and the banker economist
is paid to lie.

so you have to make observations. My point is you have to measure something. Child care might be measurable through a survey. You sample the population of children or parents, and ask how many hours a day those parents get to spend with their kids. I suppose you could estimate it as an add-on to GDP if took the average salary of a baby sitter.

It's hard doing things like this.

You may be able to measure the time I have for myself. You might be able to ask me how long I do particular things. It's really hard to gage how efficient I am at doing things in my private time.

Economists can tell you if industry is becoming more efficient, hiring less people and producing more stuff. They have trouble measuring the quality of life.

I've heard of attempts at a quality of life index, but I can't find a link. The problem with these is you have to put arbitrary weights on a bunch of surveys.

It is intrinsically decentralized.