Months of reading about the financial crisis have led me to conclude that what has happened is simply a logical outcome of the use of money; and, that this is not a problem of capitalism but of a natural outcome of the foolishness that is the root of all monetary transactions.
Pretty seashells, precious metals, these were the first currencies—and by currencies I mean frauds, for fraud is the essence of money. The first uses of otherwise useless but pretty objects as stores of value may have originated with a childlike understanding of the value of pretty things. Nevertheless, whether value is ascribed to seashells or paper money, such object contain not only symbolic value but an assumed real value, or trusted value. For the creator/discoverer they permit a form of culturally sanctioned theft. The person who accepts the seashell in exchange for food does not think the seashell is a promise to pay something actually valuable in the future; no, the seashell is accepted as payment in full because it’s assumed that the same con can be played on someone else, so if we all con each other and everyone can find seashells the system will be fair. Perhaps, but today a few people control the creation and the origin of money. Today, money is “created” with lightning speed and dumped into banks, who profit from it by simply charging the innocent interest for its use. Consequently, the amount of money in the economy constantly increases, not because the economy becomes more valuable, but because more money is constantly loaned out and needed to pay the interest. This is half the reason for our obsession with growth: growth is necessary to pay debts. And, if all this isn’t enough, today people are gambling, or betting, on other betters. This means that today debts are considered valuable and people buy them—sometimes with loans—as derivatives, shadow shit and other hocus-pocus crap, so that money becomes even more worthless.
In short, today more than ever, we delude ourselves thinking that money is a trustworthy thing, has a noble origin, and has a reliable value.
And yet, even if money’s creation and distribution were regulated, why do we need it? Could we rid ourselves of this bad joke, this medium of our perpetually suspended disbelief, this tool of consensual theft? How can an economy comprised of thousands of specialized professionals manage without money? The old barter system would never do. The current system cannot survive without money.
Good. I have another system in mind. Economics, the market place, a culture obsessed with the pursuit of profit and technological development: these things have no value in the world I seek.
