I've been on a tear against Capitalism lately, and a refrain I've heard often but have thus far been unable to rebut is, "So how will you buy stuff without money?" I can explain why that's a facile argument until I'm blue in the face, sure, but when I put myself in the shoes of my opponent and look back at myself, well...

I've got a stainless steel Apple Watch with an expensive band on my wrist. I'm wearing Duluth or Carhartt with a Lockwood51 belt. I've been tapping on an iPhone 14 Pro, I'm wearing Japanese eyeglasses (which are too small for my big-ass American headshape), carrying a Fujifilm X-Pro 3 with a $400-$1200 lens on it, with Peak Design straps and cuffs and bags, wearing Sony XM4 headphones...

No wonder they think this argument is valid. To them, I probably look like a damn hypocrite. Yes, I'm a huge tech nerd, I LOVE SHINY THINGS, and my interests skew towards expensive electronics for gaming, home theater, music listening, computing, you name it. All of this is to say I couldn't really answer their question, because I didn't quite know what the answer was. Like, obviously Capitalism doesn't mean the end of money...right?

Enter "How Capitalism Ends" by Steve Paxton, a book that helped fill in a lot of my own gaps regarding the history of the Capitalism economic model as well as prepare me to answer these questions. One of the biggest lessons it taught me was that it's worth actually considering my opponent's perspective when they make an argument with receptive conviction, because it's my opening to actually try and change their perspective. As Steve repeats throughout his book (and that I'll paraphrase here): it's not our obligation to defend progressive policies aimed at improving life for all; rather, it's the responsibility of the opponent to explain how justice, equality, democracy, and humanity are improved for everyone by preventing the change.

Let's start with money...

There's this wild misconception that Capitalism = money, and without Capitalism we somehow have to find a replacement for money. I think that this comes from sci-fi like Star Trek, in this fantastical future where meritocracies work and scarcity doesn't exist, so there's no real need for actual money to change hands anymore. The reality of the death of Capitalism is that money doesn't go anywhere. It existed before Capitalism (and feudalism, for that matter), and it'll exist after, for the sole reason that it's the most efficient way to store transactional value for future goods or services.

So if Capitalism is dead and buried tomorrow, what does a post-Capitalist currency look like? Well, much the same as today, but likely with a few, prominent tweaks to help the average person adjust. For one thing, expect credit lines to get slashed to pieces as stringent regulations govern their interest rates and operations. With less credit to pull on, there will be a renewed focus on savings and debit transactions, but not an increase on cash transactions. There will still be the big debts, like mortgages or loans, but those will gradually get chipped away to be less exploitative and safer for the government to back (particularly mortgages; I expect sub-20% down payment mortgages to get the axe real quick). All of this means that, for the average human, life continues on mostly like normal, except with more debit and less credit. The money still gets spent and passed around, but there would be a slowdown on big ticket purchases due to a lack of credit lines.

Speaking of big purchases...

That's probably the biggest, most prominent and visible change the average person will encounter: the cost of luxury goods will go way up, but their release cadence will slow down. No more yearly TV/cell phone/appliance model refreshes, as the goal won't be infinite growth but on long term sustainability of employment, operations, and profits. Your stuff will be more expensive, but it'll also last longer too. I would expect a functioning post-Capitalist government to do a one-two punch of both Right-to-Repair and Minimum Warranty periods for goods (especially technology, with its high consumption of rare earths and contribution to both eWaste and Climate Change), which in turn would spur manufacturers to build goods that would last three to five years (or more) instead of the 90 days to 1 year they currently get warranties for.

It would suck to be a Dollar General or a Wal-Mart, but everyone else would generally be fine - provided they weren't selling disposable garbage.

Commerce will continue, as it always has

Capitalism's focus on infinite growth is obviously detrimental to the planet and its life, but also was never a realistic goal to begin with. Post-Capitalism life would be marked by a perception shift away from infinite growth forever, and more towards sustainability. If I were to place some truly outlandish bets, I think it's entirely possible that the entire stock market is abolished or made redundant before the end of the century, as its only benefit is to speculative gamblers in suits trying to fleece pension funds and governments of their taxpayers' holdings (in this authors' personal opinion). Governments could very easily setup funded pension schemes that don't rely on stock markets for growth, and modern monetary theory posits that, at least when using domestic resources, a country can issue as much currency as it needs for investments without worrying about debts (as the money becomes invested into its economy, infrastructure, and populace, and will eventually return to the government via tax revenue).

Speaking of MMT and debt, there absolutely is a concern that international trade could be severely curtailed or disrupted by countries printing far more money than they need just to acquire outside goods or services. This would require restructuring international trade to be based around exchanging resources rather than direct currencies, and a reduction in globalization via reshoring work. This is not a bad thing, as countries that are mostly or entirely self-sufficient have no need to inflict harm on their neighbors, while neighboring countries that are only partly sufficient are incentivized to form alliances (much like the USA or EU) to bridge their respective gaps in resources and mutually prosper. This is a very simplified view of things (as I am not an economist), and very optimistic, but I do think it's doable in the long run.

"But what about private property?"

Again, I'm going to refer you to Steve Paxton's book on this one (seriously, it's an excellent read), but the gist in the short term is a whole lot of "everything improves for 90%, some stuff changes for 9%, and life gets slightly inconvenienced and cut back for the 1%". There's a big boogieman that Capitalists like to trot out when confronted with the demise of their economic model:

The socialists want to abolish private property! They'll take your land, your home, your business, and give it to someone else!

It's almost as common as the glib shitpost of "how will they pay for stuff when they run out of everyone else's money", but as with any potent lie, it is tinted with just the slightest dusting of truth. Yes, under Socialism or Communism, private property rights would be significantly curtailed...eventually. Like, over the course of a hundred to two hundred years, maybe more.

The gubment ain't gonna take yer home. Though the government might setup a right-of-first-refusal for property sales, as a means to claw back hoarded or misused land for public use. The government might offer you a fair tax assessed value for your home - which you might think is too low, until you're reminded that oh yeah, you kept voting to artificially restrict tax assessment increases to below arbitrary limits so your bill didn't shoot up. The government might take its land holdings and use them to build public housing, a new school, or remove zoning restrictions without having to worry about NIMBYs blocking the changes.

What I quite liked about Steve Paxton's argument is that private property - specifically, private land - is fundamentally opposed to human rights and equality. For centuries, we've prohibited minority groups from owning land through bondage, then laws, then zoning, then private communities/clubs, and then property values. Removing land from the public trust and placing it into the hands of a private individual effectively ignores the will of the 99.99999% (who likely want it to be used wisely, kept safe for crossing, contribute to the health of the planet, accessible by public transit, and kept to a certain population density) in favor of the one rich person who wants yet another McMansion and private pool and large garden. Through that lens, private land seems pretty indefensible, at least until such time that we can quite literally create bespoke custom planets for every lifeform in existence (i.e., never).

In the short term, however, we have to work with what we have. That may mean the right-of-first-refusal sale model I suggested above, or it might mean restrictions on sales of homes or their values - such as steep windfall taxes if a home sells above its tax assessed value, or prohibition of sale for homes equipped with oil heat or fossil fuel energy sources. It would almost certainly mean the abolition of tax breaks for any sort of home ownership - first, second, vacation, rental, etc. - and the removal of property tax caps so that townships can finally reap long overdue tax revenue for fairly assessed property values. These would right the currently insane housing market, as well as help reduce homelessness by enabling more people to buy a home - and therefore depress rents to the point that everyone else can find an apartment.

As for the business angle, the only reason the government should dismantle your business is for breaching regulatory requirements. Right now those are few and far between, but in the short to midterm it could mean penalties for having workers on government assistance programs, such as direct tax hikes (or the elimination of tax deductions for losses), as well as the inability to bid on or accept government contracts. It's long past time we accept that if a business or company cannot exist without government subsidy, then perhaps that's a function either best left to the government, or worthy of outright elimination.

That doesn't sound so bad, actually.

It's not as scary as it sounds. Capitalism is a tool, and we got some really good use out of it. Unfortunately, our current set of civilization-level problems aren't something we can solve with Capitalism - and in fact, they're a direct result of Capitalism running amok unchecked past its expiration date - but it doesn't mean that the world is going to come collapsing down upon us if we transition away from it.

Humanity didn't die when Feudalism was succeeded by Capitalism, though we would've remained far more vulnerable to famine, disease, and disaster if we had remained with Feudalism. Likewise, we will not die when Capitalism is replaced by something else, but we run the risk of self-destruction if we allow Capitalism to remain.

That's the real takeaway, here. It's time to put the broken tool away, and grab a new, correct one from the tool chest. There's Socialism, Democracy, Communism, and various Diet or Zero flavor variants thereof to try. We may not know what will work, but we definitely know what doesn't work.