The Problem of Money

[The_Last_Man]

Money seems to present stark contradictions and paradoxical consequences for man. On the one hand money, in theory, represents a perceived value at a distance, is a symbolic representation of some existent thing which has value to someone. Thus money can operate as a neutral medium of exchange, freeing us from the need to barter item for item - it can allow for a “perfect” (as perfect as possible) common standard of comparative value among things, which is always fluid and changing but represents the best possible assignation of relative value of things within a group of people.

On the other hand, money has a power all its own, one that leads us to do things we otherwise would not. The desire for money can consume us at the expense of all other values in our lives. Money can also be used as power over others, he who has a lot of money can dominate he who does not, through various means and within any economic system that exists or has existed. Money is thus inevitably a tool of enslavement and control, and seems to remain at the heart of systems which seek and establish forms of domination over man (the appropriation and control of money has been vital for tyrannical regimes and dictators throughout history, because as we all know, money is power).

Money also distances us from the thing in question which it is supposed to represent, the real worth or created value of a physical thing. This distancing becomes even more problematic when we consider debt, interest, stocks and bonds. These functions of money tend to withdraw the real existent worth behind money further and further, and money takes on a meaning of its own, an inherent value disconnected from any real thing in physical reality. Thus money becomes valuable precisely and only because we act like it is valuable.

And yet you cannot eat money, you cannot build a house of it, it will not keep you warm in a fire for long. . . in short money has no inherent value in terms of any real physical limitation or condition of our existence, except for the imaginary value we give it that allows us to trade it ultimately for goods and services that are of real physical value to us.

But could we live in a society without money? How would this be possible, absent a simple barter system? It seems like money is necessary in some form for a common system of exchange. . . but when money distances itself more and more from a real thing of value it tends to lose this advantage because the relative value of real things cannot be assessed via money – if money is distant from real tangible values (goods, services, products, things) then it ceases to be an accurate arbitor of the relative value of these things to each other.

Money seems both necessary as well as at the heart of so many ills and problems with the world. Is there a “solution” to the problem of money? Is it necessay, or could we conceive of a practical economy without money?

Perhaps a society in which all products and needs or desires can be made relatively cheaply and plentifully, there would be no need for money, sort of like in the world of Star Trek. A huge potential surplus would need to exist of all valuable things in life for this to work, it seems, else the economy would reduce itself to bartering. So perhaps technological advancement is the key to ridding ourselves of money?

[Mastriani]

Money seems both necessary as well as at the heart of so many ills and problems with the world. Is there a “solution” to the problem of money? Is it necessay, or could we conceive of a practical economy without money?

At this point, doubtful to the highest.

Too much of the world is relegated to the perception of value that comes from what “money” can obtain. The acculturation of this perception is sweeping, literally without end.
It is the locus of power; individually, societally, nationally, culturally and internationally. Human life no longer has “value” that is not defined by the material that surrounds that human.

[Dairdo]

After responding to a number of early paragraphs without reading your later paragraphs - I realize some of my questions/comments are unnecessary. Nevertheless, I’ve left them, as they’re part of larger comments that I think are relevent to the subject.

@The Last Man

On the other hand, money has a power all its own, one that leads us to do things we otherwise would not. The desire for money can consume us at the expense of all other values in our lives.

So can a desire for sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. I think the popular opinion that “money has a power” is a convenient psychological escape to help people fill the void in their lives that results from an inability to identify actual values that resonate with the individual specifically. It becomes intellectual efficient (lazy) to chase money as a “value” because, superficially, and from a young age, the pursuit of money masquerades as the pursuit of a real value.

Money can also be used as power over others, he who has a lot of money can dominate he who does not, through various means and within any economic system that exists or has existed.

Again, I don’t think “money” is exclusive, or even remotely unique in this respect – and to present it as such, confuses the issue. In the absence of money (paper, coin, ‘legal tender’) - those individuals who find it acceptable to influence the behaviours/decisions of others through coercive economic measures (withholding food, water, medicine, etc.) will find a way to do so whether money is involved or not. Money is not the issue – as it only reflects a means to more fundamental human needs, not a need in and of itself.

Money is thus inevitably a tool of enslavement and control, and seems to remain at the heart of systems which seek and establish forms of domination over man (the appropriation and control of money has been vital for tyrannical regimes and dictators throughout history, because as we all know, money is power).

Money is only such a tool if it is sanctioned by the victims–unconciously or not, it matters not.

More interestingly though, when you say:

(money) seems to remain at the heart of systems which seek and establish forms of domination over man…

In the absence of a legal tender – a medium for exchange of value as you noted in your opening paragraph – as the heart of an economic system, what do you propose in its place?

Money also distances us from the thing in question which it is supposed to represent, the real worth or created value of a physical thing. This distancing becomes even more problematic when we consider debt, interest, stocks and bonds. These functions of money tend to withdraw the real existent worth behind money further and further, and money takes on a meaning of its own, an inherent value disconnected from any real thing in physical reality. Thus money becomes valuable precisely and only because we act like it is valuable.

I’ll have to think this paragraph over. I feel like I disagree with the start… but agree with the end…

And yet you cannot eat money, you cannot build a house of it, it will not keep you warm in a fire for long. . . in short money has no inherent value in terms of any real physical limitation or condition of our existence, except for the imaginary value we give it that allows us to trade it ultimately for goods and services that are of real physical value to us.

If your measure of “living” is limited to simple survival – and you therefore value only those things that “can keep you warm”, or “build a house of”, then by all means, go live that life. There are many wild and untamed places of both Canada and the USA that are fertile and capable of supporting you.

However, if you wish to direct your mind towards other activities – education, the sciences, literature, etc etc etc – then you’re going to need a medium of exchange with which you can trade value for value with those individuals who have opted to produce the goods that “build a house” and “keep you warm”.

This paragraph trivializes what I consider to a be a critical pillar of modern human longevity and quality of life. Personally - I take great pleasure in learning survival tactics and all aspects of self-sufficient living - because it interests me and gives me a great sense of personal accomplishment. Though, I would never wish that such harsh living actually be made the status quo – and that a return to pure bartering to satisfy human needs was restored to a place of prominence.

But could we live in a society without money? How would this be possible, absent a simple barter system? It seems like money is necessary in some form for a common system of exchange. . . but when money distances itself more and more from a real thing of value it tends to lose this advantage because the relative value of real things cannot be assessed via money – if money is distant from real tangible values (goods, services, products, things) then it ceases to be an accurate arbitor of the relative value of these things to each other.

I see you’ve addressed my questions/issues with some of your earlier paragraphs here – so please disregard as appropriate.

I will however reiterate that I believe you to be anthropomorphizing money when you describe it as being capable of “distancing” us from the physical values to which it represents. Rather, I think it is the individual that, through a lack of definitive values – rationally identified relative to their own life – having been supplanted by mass media and social influence lose sight of what it is that money actually represents to them individually.

Perhaps a society in which all products and needs or desires can be made relatively cheaply and plentifully, there would be no need for money, sort of like in the world of Star Trek.

I couldn’t agree more. In a world where all power and basic necessities are free - or close to it - we’ll be free to pursue our lives as we see fit and engage in a more honest barter system whereby we trade value for value between individuals.

(As a Star Trek nut, I love the reference. )

[Xunzian]

You checked out MacIntyre?

Or Aristotle, though MacIntyre’s interpretation is necessary . . .

External goods vs. internal goods and people idolizing the former at the expense of the latter.

[Rouzbeh]

Fancy writing. Money allows for creation of value (credit) through ‘fractional reserve banking’.
You put 100$ received from the central bank into a private bank and get a deposit slip. The bank is operating with a reserve ratio of 1:10, deposits 10$ of that in the central bank as reserve and loans out 90$. Another bank takes a 10$ share of that, and itself operating on 1:10 again keeps 9$ in the central bank and loans out a further 81$. So, from the original 100$ created by the government, there’s now 100+90+81=271$ in this little economy. There’s many more advantages but the simple fact is that money is positive and necessary, and that lenders and financiers are ultimately the drivers of living standards by taking idle money and providing it to people who’ll make better use of it, the rich can get richer but so does everybody else.

[The_Last_Man]

@Rouzbeh

Fancy writing. Money allows for creation of value (credit) through ‘fractional reserve banking’.
You put 100$ received from the central bank into a private bank and get a deposit slip. The bank is operating with a reserve ratio of 1:10, deposits 10$ of that in the central bank as reserve and loans out 90$. Another bank takes a 10$ share of that, and itself operating on 1:10 again keeps 9$ in the central bank and loans out a further 81$. So, from the original 100$ created by the government, there’s now 100+90+81=271$ in this little economy. There’s many more advantages but the simple fact is that money is positive and necessary, and that lenders and financiers are ultimately the drivers of living standards by taking idle money and providing it to people who’ll make better use of it, the rich can get richer but so does everybody else.

Do you distinguish between the creation of money/credit and the creation of real value/worth? Humans value certain things because they benefit us in some way, because we desire them for some reason which relates to our life or needs. Fiat currency has no such value but is only valuable in obtaining those other real values, things that we desire or need based on what they are themselves, not on what they can be traded for.

You are right about fractional lending - but such practices causes a whole host of problems. The basis of money/currency is not that it is inhrently valuable, but that it can be traded for something inherently valuable. If then entire system collapsed and money became worthless, the things we buy with money would still be valuable to us - they do not derive their value from money, but money does derive its value from them. So there is a difference.

When fractional lending and fiat currencies are employed, however, money ceases to be directly tied into the value of those other real things, precisely because the mechanism of free trading and individual evaluations is distorted severely by market manipulations, investing and risk, hoarding and collecting of interest, and most of all by the creation of money which has no corresponding real thing that it is tied to. This leads to inflation and devaluation of currency, which is another problem in itself but is symptomatic of the real problem, that fiat currency via fractional lending suffers a disconnect from those real things which we intrinsically value. This is a problem because money is meant and functions as a system of exchange and homogenization, leveling all diverse products onto one field of comparison. Yet if this comparative field, this system of exchange is not in fact related to the actual values of the things that are exchanged within that system, actual values cannot be determined. This equates to inefficiency and waste : either a real product is traded at less than its value and thus the seller loses, or the real product is traded at more than its value and thus the buyer loses. It is essential that a real emergent market valuation is flexible and responsive to consumer and individual needs and desires, supply and demand and personal consumption behavior, but when money is disconnected via the mechanisms of fiat and fractional lending this is severely reduced.

Thus real value cannot as easily be ascertained and economic transactions represent an inherent loss of value for at least one party, of necessity. This is partially compensated for by the expansion of the money supply through artificial means (printing more money, creating debt as money via lending and banks) but this is only a temporary solution. The system is unstable and full of errors and inefficiencies due to the disconnect between real market value of a thing and the monetary price attached to it. Over time this destabilizes economies and leads to overall inflation, increasing losses of productivity via the disconnect of value between product and money, the increasing of debt over time in order to keep the inefficient system moving, and possibly severe economic downturns and possibly runaway hyperinflation or monetary collapse.

The history of fiat and fractional lending reflects this. When money loses its direct and necessary connection of value to the market value of the real things for which it is traded, everything slowly starts to fall apart and the economy is at severe long-term risks from rising debt, lower value of currency and reduced productivity via the inherent losses of gained value implicit in economic exchanges.

[Dairdo]

@The Last Man

The history of fiat and fractional lending reflects this. When money loses its direct and necessary connection of value to the market value of the real things for which it is traded, everything slowly starts to fall apart and the economy is at severe long-term risks from rising debt, lower value of currency and reduced productivity via the inherent losses of gained value implicit in economic exchanges.

Bring back the gold standard! Seriously…

[kuzakahn]

unsure if this discussion actually means anything practically, even though it is about a very practical subject. money is a tool, just like religion, computers, beliefs, principles, philosophies, culture. otherwise the essential subject of money is just something to talk about, like we are doing right now. more information about money should be gleaned from economic and finance textbooks, adam smith, etc. i think a more interesting subject is regarding the monetary value of human life and the discrepancies in the value of lives among different settings associated with different people. why am i worth more in value than that person over there in the other part of the world? am i truly worth more? if I am worth more maybe i should make something of my life. if i am worth less, how do i become more of value? if i think of myself as worth more does that increase my value? (yes, I think it does). I recognize that the distinction between other types of value and monetary value are blurred when discussing the value of a person.

[Rouzbeh]

Right you’re making really bold and very general statements without citations or any examples. I don’t know if you mean bartering is better, but excess inflation is a product of economic mismanagement, and having the gold standard never mitigated that either. Money, banknotes, were never meant to be tied in to the value of anything, which is why it’s such an efficient tool for valuing products. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘real market value’ and ‘attached monetary price’. How do you differentiate between the two? If you mean to say that money should be tied into the value of another item, like gold, well I don’t think that helped the Great Depression fare any better than The Recession. Here’s a quote from Fergusion Niall’s book ‘The Ascent of Money’:

“A currency peg can mean higher volatility in short-term interest rates, as the central bank seeks to keep the price of its money steady in terms of the peg. It can mean deflation, if the supply of the peg is constrained (as the supply of gold was relative to the demand for it in the 1870s and 1880s). And it can transmit financial crises (as happened throughout the restored gold standard after 1929).”

I recently read some articles about possible constraints on the gold supply. So, tying money into another item makes for some very tight monetary policies and limits economic development. Controlled inflation is a good thing given how much modern countries rely on debt to maintain themselves. Meanwhile, you can still buy gold or bonds to maintain the value of your money.

[Only_Humean]

@The Last Man

Money seems to present stark contradictions and paradoxical consequences for man. On the one hand money, in theory, represents a perceived value at a distance, is a symbolic representation of some existent thing which has value to someone. Thus money can operate as a neutral medium of exchange, freeing us from the need to barter item for item - it can allow for a “perfect” (as perfect as possible) common standard of comparative value among things, which is always fluid and changing but represents the best possible assignation of relative value of things within a group of people.

It has practical value as well. For example, in a farming economy, money is an asset that doesn’t rot, decay or sour. You can use the profits from a bumper crop of apples to carry you through a bad patch of potato blight. And because it frees you to an extent from uncontrolled dynamic natural forces, it also frees you from controlled/artificial dynamic forces; it’s harder to corner a market or be cornered, as people are not as dependent on a single supplier/customer. In this way it levels the playing field.

For example, you have a baker and an farmer. Every autumn the farmer has apples aplenty, and the baker asks for 100 apples for a loaf of bread. In the spring, there’s only rhubarb and the last roots, and the miller doesn’t like them much, so there’s no point the baker asking for many with an eye to trading them for flower, and he can better trade his bread for other things. Then the farmer gets no bread.

On the other hand, money has a power all its own, one that leads us to do things we otherwise would not. The desire for money can consume us at the expense of all other values in our lives. Money can also be used as power over others, he who has a lot of money can dominate he who does not, through various means and within any economic system that exists or has existed. Money is thus inevitably a tool of enslavement and control, and seems to remain at the heart of systems which seek and establish forms of domination over man (the appropriation and control of money has been vital for tyrannical regimes and dictators throughout history, because as we all know, money is power).

Money is a form of socially-sanctioned power; society gives power to those who benefit it, and money is one measure of that. And, just as political power should be subject to checks and balances, so should monetary power. Not everything is for sale within a society, nor should it be.

But could we live in a society without money? How would this be possible, absent a simple barter system? It seems like money is necessary in some form for a common system of exchange. . .

Centrally-administered apportioning - rationing - is one solution that’s been tried. And that leads, in effect, to a barter economy. Which leads to problems of its own.

Money seems both necessary as well as at the heart of so many ills and problems with the world. Is there a “solution” to the problem of money? Is it necessay, or could we conceive of a practical economy without money?

Money doesn’t kill people, people do

Perhaps a society in which all products and needs or desires can be made relatively cheaply and plentifully, there would be no need for money, sort of like in the world of Star Trek. A huge potential surplus would need to exist of all valuable things in life for this to work, it seems, else the economy would reduce itself to bartering. So perhaps technological advancement is the key to ridding ourselves of money?

This is the consumerist utopia… but not all desires can be made. How will you pay prostitutes and assassins?

Writing as I think, now… of course, no-one will want to be a prostitute or an assassin if they can’t relatively advance their power by doing so. Or rather, they will become promiscuous people and killers, without a profession to attach to their actions, and they will follow their own mind as to who to practise their skills upon. By taking away money, you’ll take away a method of recruitment to a cause. There will still be persuasion, of course, but I can’t think of any other means. In which case, skills of oratory, good looks, charisma will become more determining for an individual’s power. Politicians will win, in a sense. Large-scale co-operation for industrial projects, for example, will have to appeal to reason and emotion. I don’t know in how far that will help - in how far our entire infrastructure is already founded on money/insufficiency. Who will maintain the infrastructure when everyone has what they want?

[Tab]

@Last man

Do you distinguish between the creation of money/credit and the creation of real value/worth?

I’ve always thought that the ‘creation of money’ through lending is not really creation so much as bringing ‘future money’ into the present - kind of like a financial time machine.

It’s a bet of course, like all money-making schemes, but as long as enough poeple pay back their loans on time to cover those that don’t, everything is cool. Well. Except like now of course. That whole sub-prime thing went pear-shaped. But that was more the fault of banking systems, than the principle itself. Greedy greedy.

And I don’t agree about money causing some of mankind’s ills. Mankind creates mankind’s ills. Money just sometimes creates moral hazard. But to be honest, that’s kinda the point of business anyway. A little greed is good, but too much and pop goes the weasle, or rather, the bubble.

@Kuzakhan

i think a more interesting subject is regarding the monetary value of human life and the discrepancies in the value of lives among different settings associated with different people. why am i worth more in value than that person over there in the other part of the world? am i truly worth more? if I am worth more maybe i should make something of my life. if i am worth less, how do i become more of value?

With respect to human monetary worth - pay - it helps to think of yourself as a machine or a tool or a program. You rent yourself out for a certain amount every hour. What people are willing to pay you for that hour depends on what you are capable of doing for them in that hour. If an employee reckons he can get just a little more work value out of you than he has to pay you, then he’ll hire you for that hour, and pay the dues.

You must also remember that you - unless your area of work is entirely free-lance, and the requires nothing that you cannot create yourself, and carry around - are also paying the employer for the use of his ‘machine’ - the office/factory/whatever - that enables you to work for him. It’s kind of a two-way deal.

Two ways to make yourself more valuable - (1) become rare. Be able to do or create something useful that only very few others can do. Then name your price. (2) obtain skills / knowledge applicable to whatever uses an employer needs. (This is just a watered down version of rarity - but then work-wise, most things are).

As a general rule, you are worth absolutely fuck all, except in terms of reclaimable chemicals, it is what you can do, contexted against what - locally (no point being a geriatric nurse if the average lifespan in your area is 45) - needs to be done, that gives you worth.

[OriginalResonance]

Guilt by association. The logical consequent is to wish you’ve never been born at all. After all, life does entail suffering. Examine all the woes of society and one common theme emerges: survival of the most adaptable. Society can be equal only when everyone has the will to power and not just a few enterprising souls. So stop blaming money when it’s just an instrument for exchange. Stop blaming greed when we are all greedy (you don’t stop eating after you’ve eaten the day before, do you?)

[TheSlowPath]

With all due respect, Money is to blame as a catalyst for human suffering, just as humanity is to blame for placing such a high value on Money itself.

If one considers that Money is a creation of humanity, then it goes without saying that the blame really rests upon humanity itself, which should be self-evident but it is easier (and less humiliating) for people to place the blame outside of themselves rather than squarely upon themselves, hence the incorrect labelling of Money as an ‘Evil’, as it would really be humanity that is the ‘Evil’ but easier tends to be the natural flow of people thus the misconception(s).

Such is the human condition, as it manifests itself at this point in time, and most likely all throughout our monetary history (but most evidently to us at this point in time).

However, to associate greed with a necessity of life such as eating is irresponsible and misguided at best. How does one equate eating each day as a function of life with being greedy?

Greed is defined as ‘a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed’, and since nutritional sustenance is necessary for the function of life, how is it justified to infer a correlation between the two?

A more apt comparison might be to compare eating in excesss (read: more than is necessary) with that of greed, would it not?

[Only_Humean]

@kuzakahn

i think a more interesting subject is regarding the monetary value of human life and the discrepancies in the value of lives among different settings associated with different people. why am i worth more in value than that person over there in the other part of the world? am i truly worth more? if I am worth more maybe i should make something of my life. if i am worth less, how do i become more of value? if i think of myself as worth more does that increase my value? (yes, I think it does). I recognize that the distinction between other types of value and monetary value are blurred when discussing the value of a person.

There’s something missing - value is only value to someone or something. It’s not like temperature.

[OriginalResonance]

@TheSlowPath

With all due respect, Money is to blame as a catalyst for human suffering, just as humanity is to blame for placing such a high value on Money itself.

If one considers that Money is a creation of humanity, then it goes without saying that the blame really rests upon humanity itself, which should be self-evident but it is easier (and less humiliating) for people to place the blame outside of themselves rather than squarely upon themselves, hence the incorrect labelling of Money as an ‘Evil’, as it would really be humanity that is the ‘Evil’ but easier tends to be the natural flow of people thus the misconception(s).

Such is the human condition, as it manifests itself at this point in time, and most likely all throughout our monetary history (but most evidently to us at this point in time).

However, to associate greed with a necessity of life such as eating is irresponsible and misguided at best. How does one equate eating each day as a function of life with being greedy?

Greed is defined as ‘a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed’, and since nutritional sustenance is necessary for the function of life, how is it justified to infer a correlation between the two?

A more apt comparison might be to compare eating in excesss (read: more than is necessary) with that of greed, would it not?

Allow me to pose two simple questions: Is sensory deprivation a form of torture? And why so when there’s no pain and danger to life?

[The_Last_Man]

@OriginalResonance

Guilt by association.

Your own personal feelings do not necessarily translate to anyone else here. Just to let you know.

The logical consequent is to wish you’ve never been born at all. After all, life does entail suffering.

The inevitability of suffering does not equate with the resignation to suffering. One can still resist suffering as he is capable within the context of knowing that to eliminate all suffering is impossible.

Examine all the woes of society and one common theme emerges: survival of the most adaptable.

Um? How does this in any way relate to the “woes of society”? That people are adaptable to their circumstances is a given. The woes of society tend to be caused by people being callous and unconcerned for anyone but themselves, thus they tend to coerce, repress, harm, demean, rob, kill, enslave other people when they can get away with it. The entire hierarchial structure of identity and status is at the heart of all human and societal woes - and at the heart of this hierarchial structure is money.

Society can be equal only when everyone has the will to power and not just a few enterprising souls.

It’s not about being “equal”, that has nothing to do with anything here. Please try to stay on topic, if you can. Or if youre going to make tangent arguments, at least make them somewhat relevant. For example, “society” being “equal” doesnt even say anything at all - “society” as equal to what? Itself? Other societies…?

So stop blaming money when it’s just an instrument for exchange.

Money is more than “just an instrument for exchange”. Money is a valuator, it assigns status and value to all that comes within its sphere of influence. Even human lives, human conditions and human experiences - these are all homogenized and appropriated by money, turned into means to the end of money, ie. to the accumulation of more money for the sake of having more money. Monetary value changes the nature of a thing, especially of human things (of our talents, our desires, our feelings, our relationships, our time and energy and creativity, our initiative, our ideas and beliefs, our concepts of the future and of society, our value of human life, our own and others). Money is functional because it assigns coefficients to those things which it monetizes, and thus it changes the nature of things, brings them into new contexts and artificial relations.

Money is not the only problem, of course, but that does not mean that it isnt a problem, and a fundamental one at that. And yet it also seems totally necessary to modern human life, which is the the paradox at the heart of money that I am seeking to address with this topic.

Stop blaming greed when we are all greedy

Greed is a natural instinct of human nature. Yet money brings out this natural instinct. Money is a tool of status and hierarchy, and thus a tool of domination and interpersonal power. Yes we are greedy regardless of money - but money exacerbates the problem, makes it much worse.

(you don’t stop eating after you’ve eaten the day before, do you?)

Why should I? Are you saying that anything beyond the barest minimum of necessity is “greed”? Clearly your dogmatic black-and-white thinking is limiting your ability to understand the issues I am speaking of here. There are degrees of desire, some of them “greedy” in a harmful way and some not. Some are simply biological functions of survival, such as “eat when I can, above and beyond the barest minimum needed for survival”.

[OriginalResonance]

@The Last Man

Your own personal feelings do not necessarily translate to anyone else here. Just to let you know.

Well, the fact is that the dictionary define “money” as “a medium of exchange”. And here we have a few users criticising the role of money as a tool for slavery. If this isn’t guilt by association, I don’t know what is. It’s human immorality that caused slavery, not the medium of exchanging goods and services with pieces of paper.

The inevitability of suffering does not equate with the resignation to suffering. One can still resist suffering as he is capable within the context of knowing that to eliminate all suffering is impossible.

Well, tell that to those who want money to be abolished. I was extrapolating on their behalf i.e money is associated with greed, therefore we should replace money with something else. Using the same logic, life would thus be not worthy of living since suffering is associated with it. To put it succinctly, it’s throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Um? How does this in any way relate to the “woes of society”? That people are adaptable to their circumstances is a given. The woes of society tend to be caused by people being callous and unconcerned for anyone but themselves, thus they tend to coerce, repress, harm, demean, rob, kill, enslave other people when they can get away with it. The entire hierarchial structure of identity and status is at the heart of all human and societal woes - and at the heart of this hierarchial structure is money.

All human endeavour and motivations are intrinsically selfish. People do good for others because they evolved to feel good about it and, conversely, feel bad about not doing it. The only resolution is to empower everyone. Knife-wielding thieves run when they see gun-holding police. It’s all about power. There’s a reason why we don’t have nuclear warfare now even when nuclear weapons have proliferated all across the globe. Power deters. At the heart of social hierarchy is not money but influence. Who is more powerful? Obama or Bill Gates?

It’s not about being “equal”, that has nothing to do with anything here. Please try to stay on topic, if you can. Or if youre going to make tangent arguments, at least make them somewhat relevant. For example, “society” being “equal” doesnt even say anything at all - “society” as equal to what? Itself? Other societies…?

It is about equality. Everyone is wondering why the rich are “exploiting” the poor and how unfair an equilibrium it is without realizing that the poor only have themselves to blame.

Money is more than “just an instrument for exchange”. Money is a valuator, it assigns status and value to all that comes within its sphere of influence. Even human lives, human conditions and human experiences - these are all homogenized and appropriated by money, turned into means to the end of money, ie. to the accumulation of more money for the sake of having more money. Monetary value changes the nature of a thing, especially of human things (of our talents, our desires, our feelings, our relationships, our time and energy and creativity, our initiative, our ideas and beliefs, our concepts of the future and of society, our value of human life, our own and others). Money is functional because it assigns coefficients to those things which it monetizes, and thus it changes the nature of things, brings them into new contexts and artificial relations.

That’s your subjective take on money. There are people in this world who laugh at nouveau riche for being tawdry and lacking class altogether. There are also people in this world who have never even heard of this thing called money.

Money is not the only problem, of course, but that does not mean that it isnt a problem, and a fundamental one at that. And yet it also seems totally necessary to modern human life, which is the the paradox at the heart of money that I am seeking to address with this topic.

It is not the problem, at all. How prosperous were civilizations using barter trade?

Why should I? Are you saying that anything beyond the barest minimum of necessity is “greed”? Clearly your dogmatic black-and-white thinking is limiting your ability to understand the issues I am speaking of here. There are degrees of desire, some of them “greedy” in a harmful way and some not. Some are simply biological functions of survival, such as “eat when I can, above and beyond the barest minimum needed for survival”.

Well, according to the dictionary, yes? The contention now is whether “greedy” is a pejorative or not. Pretty straightforward, isn’t it? If you agree that not all greed is harmful, aren’t we in agreement then?

[The_Last_Man]

@OriginalResonance

@The Last Man

Your own personal feelings do not necessarily translate to anyone else here. Just to let you know.

Well, the fact is that the dictionary define “money” as “a medium of exchange”. And here we have a few users criticising the role of money as a tool for slavery. If this isn’t guilt by association, I don’t know what is. It’s human immorality that caused slavery, not the medium of exchanging goods and services with pieces of paper.

As I indicated, money is more than pieces of paper. Come up with your own counter-points if you wish, but merely ignoring my points is not a refutation of them.

And if you are more than happy to take the dictionary as the final say on these matters, I have to ask, why are you here? Go pull out the Websters and find all the answers that way. Much easier.

The inevitability of suffering does not equate with the resignation to suffering. One can still resist suffering as he is capable within the context of knowing that to eliminate all suffering is impossible.

Well, tell that to those who want money to be abolished. I was extrapolating on their behalf i.e money is associated with greed, therefore we should replace money with something else. Using the same logic, life would thus be not worthy of living since suffering is associated with it. To put it succinctly, it’s throwing the baby out with the bath water.

That is what youre doing, yes.

I differentiate between the relative good and bad of money, the benefitial and harmful nature. I distinguish between money being useful and in all likelihood necessary from money being an instrument of social control. It is, in fact, you who is failing to achieve a sufficient level of differentiation here and thus presenting these issues in black and white terms.

Um? How does this in any way relate to the “woes of society”? That people are adaptable to their circumstances is a given. The woes of society tend to be caused by people being callous and unconcerned for anyone but themselves, thus they tend to coerce, repress, harm, demean, rob, kill, enslave other people when they can get away with it. The entire hierarchial structure of identity and status is at the heart of all human and societal woes - and at the heart of this hierarchial structure is money.

All human endeavour and motivations are intrinsically selfish. People do good for others because they evolved to feel good about it and, conversely, feel bad about not doing it.

It doesnt matter what evolutionary history shaped our emotions, they are what they are regardless. The fact is that we feel more than selfishness, we feel sympathy, compassion, empathy, kindness, pity, happiness in helping other people. There is a whole spectrum of human emotion. And even if this diverse rich world of human feeling and sentiment evolved primarily to facilitate individual survival, this is not the same as saying “its all selfish”. This is merely a classic mistake in reading Darwin. Social darwinism is a total absurdity in terms of how our human psychology actually functions as well as in terms of how societies operate.

It is just as necessary and as instinctively human to act altruistically than selfishly. There is more going on than one thing.

And you accuse me of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The only resolution is to empower everyone. Knife-wielding thieves run when they see gun-holding police.

Or they will to get guns themselves.

It’s all about power. There’s a reason why we don’t have nuclear warfare now even when nuclear weapons have proliferated all across the globe. Power deters. At the heart of social hierarchy is not money but influence. Who is more powerful? Obama or Bill Gates?

Money is influential, it is how one influences absent (or in addition to) their wielding political power.

There is more than one type of power of influence in a society. Obama and Gates both have quite a bit of social power. Do you not grasp how political and economic influence are of a different (yet also somewhat related) type, and yet both still capable of exerting tremendous power over others?

It’s not about being “equal”, that has nothing to do with anything here. Please try to stay on topic, if you can. Or if youre going to make tangent arguments, at least make them somewhat relevant. For example, “society” being “equal” doesnt even say anything at all - “society” as equal to what? Itself? Other societies…?

It is about equality. Everyone is wondering why the rich are “exploiting” the poor and how unfair an equilibrium it is without realizing that the poor only have themselves to blame.

That has never been a part of my argument here, and even if it were true, which it is not, it has no bearing upon my topic. This is not a topic about the rich exploiting the poor. It is a topic about the nature of money regardles of the wealth or lack thereof of the individuals within society. It is at heart a topic about the nature of capitalism. Whether the poor have themselves to blame or not for their specific situation is irrelevant here (and once again, you think only in absolute black and whites, throwing your own baby out with the bathwater, you refuse to see the world as a complex place with multiple different factors and forces at work. Some poor people are to blame for their situation, mostly or in part, but of course not all. The “blame” extends far beyond the individuals ability to make his own “choices”.)

Money is more than “just an instrument for exchange”. Money is a valuator, it assigns status and value to all that comes within its sphere of influence. Even human lives, human conditions and human experiences - these are all homogenized and appropriated by money, turned into means to the end of money, ie. to the accumulation of more money for the sake of having more money. Monetary value changes the nature of a thing, especially of human things (of our talents, our desires, our feelings, our relationships, our time and energy and creativity, our initiative, our ideas and beliefs, our concepts of the future and of society, our value of human life, our own and others). Money is functional because it assigns coefficients to those things which it monetizes, and thus it changes the nature of things, brings them into new contexts and artificial relations.

That’s your subjective take on money. There are people in this world who laugh at nouveau riche for being tawdry and lacking class altogether. There are also people in this world who have never even heard of this thing called money.

So?

Once again, please stick to the topic at hand, and make an argument against my points if you wish, but ignoring them is not an argument or refutation. I have made my case for how money changes the nature of things, how it exerts subtle and insidious influence, how it is functional rather than merely numerical. Feel free to make your own arguments here to the contrary, if you wish.

It doesnt matter if there are people who have never heard of money. So what is the point? That has nothing to do with anything here. Are you capable of connecting the simplistic ideas you spout with the content of the subject at hand, or at least giving an attempt to do so?

Money is not the only problem, of course, but that does not mean that it isnt a problem, and a fundamental one at that. And yet it also seems totally necessary to modern human life, which is the the paradox at the heart of money that I am seeking to address with this topic.

It is not the problem, at all. How prosperous were civilizations using barter trade?

Once again you totally miss the point. The inevitability or necessity of money to modern society is already a given in this topic. I have never said that barter was not preposterous, so your presenting that it is has nothing to do with anything I’m saying here.

Why should I? Are you saying that anything beyond the barest minimum of necessity is “greed”? Clearly your dogmatic black-and-white thinking is limiting your ability to understand the issues I am speaking of here. There are degrees of desire, some of them “greedy” in a harmful way and some not. Some are simply biological functions of survival, such as “eat when I can, above and beyond the barest minimum needed for survival”.

Well, according to the dictionary, yes? The contention now is whether “greedy” is a pejorative or not. Pretty straightforward, isn’t it? If you agree that not all greed is harmful, aren’t we in agreement then?

Once again, why waste your time on a philosophy website? Just go get the Websters and find the answers to all life’s questions.

It has nothing to do with greed being pejorative or not. You are the only one concerned with that issue, not me. I am looking deeper than people’s superficial emotional reactions here, I am trying to get at the essence and nature of money within a capitalist system. Whether you or others feel like money is “evil” or not is irrelevant.