NO, evil is the root of all money...See Peter Lamborn Wilson on money, including in The New Nihilism. Also, there are two communisms. One from Karl Marx observing that with the Industrial Revolution came the catastrophic loss of the commons with self-sufficient country folk moved into poverty in toxic cities, forcing children into child labor in the mills that William Blake called "these dark Satanic mills." Marx wanted something very simple -- that the workers own the means of production. Which brings us to the second communism where evil human beings like Lenin and Stalin took over no matter what the system's name. Finally, your friend who breezily dismisses government as not being evil but rather it's the people who run the government -- that's obvious. By using the term government, we mean those people. Which however leaves unsaid the anarchist vision of a world without governments, without laws, without the whip
Malthus wrote his treatise in 1798. Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto in 1848 when he was only 30 years old, and completed Das Capital in 1894.
One of my favourite authors, Alfred Korzybski, who wrote Science and Sanity in 1933 had this habit that I'd never encountered before. Whenever he mentioned an accepted fact of science or philosophy he always prefaced it with "as of 1933" I eventually realized why he did that, and I would do it myself if I every wrote a book (which is unlikely). Basically he was making explicit what we should by habit always consider: the time in which a work was written. Marx got a lot of things right *for his time* but he was no more able to predict the future than Malthus or any of us here for that matter. Think back just a few decades when the "Peace Dividend" was all you read about in the Wall Street Journal or NY Times. How did that work out? That's only 35 years! Das Capital is now 130 years old. Let's give the guy a break already:)
"Marx wanted something very simple -- that the workers own the means of production."
Which just might have worked back then, but even in those days things were already fairly complicated. Today they're massively more complex to the point where I'm convinced that not one living person today has a complete picture on how things actually operate. There's even a "Theory of Complexity" that's arisen to address the problem.
Part of the problem is Specialization. You need years of study just to comprehend a single discipline. In some cases half an adult lifetime just to achieve a measure of competency. Meanwhile, we have these lunatic ideologues dismantling education in the name of some hare-brained theory of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Add to that two years where primary education was rudely interrupted by a fear driven panic which traumatized an entire generation. Those are the people who are going to have to learn how to manage our economy and social institutions, many of which are already failing. Where are those future specialists going to come from, not to mention the generalists who can at least frame the larger picture and direct the specialists effectively? That isn't even taught as a discipline yet, outside of some sketchy business management schools teaching yesterday's concepts as if they had any applicability to today's increasingly complex world.
I mean, look how many words it took me just to say that? Who has the patience for that even?
"By using the term government, we mean those people."
I suffer from the affliction of having read Korzybski, who pounded the table on making everything we say as explicit as possible so's not to be misunderstood. This is the core of good communication - being clear about what we mean, because sure as shit if we're not, someone will read it the wrong way or put their own spin on it.
I would argue that most people don't consider the human element when talking about the abstraction we call government. Most people have this naive concept that people are inherently good because that's how they see themselves. They don't often see the evil in others (not to mention themselves) until it jumps up and bites them hard in the ass. At that point they become disillusioned and almost impossible to reach because once bitten, twice shy. If you start out by saying what you mean, and meaning what you say, there's less chance for that to happen IMO.
Thank you for your nice post and the idea to have a discussion between your own and one of your reader's points of view !!
Money isn't everything, but without money everything is nothing ...
Humanity's transition from an intrinsic egalitarian, highly independent, fully self-reliable/-responsible hunter-gatherer society encompassing only hundreds of individuals to highly complex, fully interdependent, highly stratified mass-societies with division of labor that led to loss of any individual sense of responsibility for the whole or reliability for himself may turn our kin's worst mistake ...
Money, whatever shape (even booze, matches or shaving-blades) has its time in history and circumstances. It should serve as a means to avoid direct bartering only. Whoever gets to worshipping it (by holding or craving for it without creating added-value) is definitively mentally sick.
Run-on sentences are fine, as long as you put the commas in the right place and the syntax isn't too convoluted:) Form vs. Content. They both matter, but usually content wins.
Andrei Martyanov (who is Russian and thus forgiven) is one of the worst writers from a formal perspective, but his ideas are so on-point I tend to overlook that. Peter Duke likewise has a neurological disorder that cause him to stutter, but I'm patient about it because he has some great ideas.
hey ebear, does this pass the sniff test of General Semantics?
WHAT IS LINGUISTIC VALUE?
Most people reading this will have no difficulty understanding what Graeber means by “value” in the economic sense, or “values” in the sociological sense, but you might not know what linguistic value is.
Basically, a word has two parts - the signifier and the signified.
Shit, poop, doo-doo, caca, mierda, merde, and scheisse are all words for excrement. They mean the same thing. Their linguistic value is identical.
Another way of thinking of words would separate the form and content. The different words listed above have different forms, but the same content. They signify the same object.
Words are basically delivery mechanisms for meaning, or essence.
I was going to make an analogy because I want to argue that the essence of money is immaterial... if five loonies have an identical value to a 5-dollar bill, and that money can be deposited and withdrawn from bank accounts without losing any of its essence, its essence includes convertibility and hence cannot be said to be material.
5-dollar bill and 'loonie' both have referents. They are both material objects I can point to. If I ask you to go to the bank and get me 5 loonies for this fiver, I've just described a process that can be operationalized, assuming the bank is open. No confusion as to what's meant by any of the terms. Some confusion may arise if you've just arrived from Spain and don't know what a loonie is, but you can point to one and say "that's what we call a one dollar coin" and the Spaniard will say, ah... so like a 'duro!" (5 peseta coin). Thus the referent is established without further description. It's just substituting one word for another with the same meaning, like when the bikers say 'feces occur.'
I'll agree that money is an abstraction that depend on shared meaning, but the value we attach to any particular amount is subject to our personal sense of value which varies from one person to the next. If I'm shopping for groceries and I see apples at $2/lb then I know exactly what the value of those apples are to the seller. Whether I feel it's good value is entirely subjective, and if I have an apple tree (which I do) I might snort in derision and just go pick my own.
Likewise, I've been offered $5000 for my Jeep XJ which has a book value of $4500 according to ICBC, but I've seen them sell for as high as $25,000! Would I sell mine for that? Probably not because I like my Jeep more than I do $25,000, and I'd have to find a replacement vehicle so subtract that from the 'value' plus the trouble of finding one given that 'time is money' especially when you don't have a lot of it left:)
This whole concept of 'value' is central to what I'm talking about with abstract nouns. not only do we lack concrete definitions, but we don't have a shared value. Remember my ex-wife's uncle, the Republican captain? For him, communism had enough value to refuse early parole. He could have been out in 5 but did the whole 20 year stretch. Communism has a certain value for me as well, but it's nothing I'd do time for, much less take up arms.
Korzybski separates words into those that have referents, and those that don't. A referent can be a physical object, a process that can be 'operationalized' that is to say, given a set of instructions can be repeated, or denotes a physical location or time.
So 'tree' or 'bulldozer' are concrete nouns, as are words like 'today' or 'Ottawa.' There's no confusion as to what we're referring to. If we want to be more precise we can tack on adjectives, like old oak tree or rusty yellow bulldozer, but the referent is still there and we don't lose the objective meaning. Likewise, Margarita or Waldorf Salad are concrete because I can give you instructions on how to make them. They won't turn out exactly the same each time, but close enough that there's no confusion as to what you're getting (unless you're Basil Fawlty).
That part's easy, it's the abstract nouns we have to worry about, because here the meaning is easily lost. Communism. Capitalism. Eroticism. They all lack referents and can thus mean different things to different people. Stuart Chase in "The Tyranny of Words" put it to the test. He asked a dozen people what the word 'Fascism' means, and got a dozen different answers. Even worse, abstract nouns can be used as pejoratives, such as 'right-wing extremist' referring to anyone wearing a MAGA hat.
"Basically, a word has two parts - the signifier and the signified."
I think you're confusing semantics with semiotics. Semiotics makes no attempt (that I'm aware of) to separate words into concrete and abstract categories. The 'signified' can be anything described using other words, as in a dictionary, whereas a concrete noun has an objective referent that we all understand without further elaboration, such as a time, a place, a physical object or an executable process.
I'm not saying don't use abstract nouns - there's really no way to avoid them. The point is to recognize when we use them, and to clarify our meaning as closely as possible when we do, which is why any good book in science or philosophy has a glossary that explains the meaning of the words used in their specific context.
"Words are basically delivery mechanisms for meaning, or essence."
Yes, but they're often used to mislead. Such as 'vaccine' when what what you're actually getting is an experimental gene therapy, and a rather nasty one at that.
Yes. Not only immaterial (like numbers, in general) but also complex (as in x + iy), money has "real" and "imaginary" elements. Tokens (physical notes, coin, beads, etc.) are the real components, whereas symbols ($, €, ¥ etc.) with attached numbers are the imaginary components.
George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of Form" introduced the 'imaginary' to classify unresolvable propositions, such as "I always lie," which seem self-contradictory, since logically, if that statement is true, it must itself be a lie; meaning, "I always tell the truth", which means "I always lie", etc., etc. Such "re-entrant" proposition appear in maths and physics as "feedbacks" which lead to infinite series or "oscillations" which produce "screeching microphones".
For GSB, logic requires three categories: [T]rue, [F]alse & [I]maginary.
It's "The love of money, is the root of all evil" people always leave the last bit out.
Funniest one of all is people say "The proof is in the pudding" where I live anyway, funny funny when I hear it, looked it up decades ago because it never made sense and it's
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating"
makes sense that you would need to eat the alleged pudding first to know.
Half the information missing in everything now, nothing can be taken at face value anymore.
Money like technology is "not" good or evil, as its an inanimate object. The most nefarious things in every culture are not the artifacts, but their implementation by dubious two legged living organisms.😁
Okay, I looked up "object. The primary definition of object is "a material thing that can be seen and touched".
So, fire and water are objects, but money is arguably not, because what makes it money is the convertibility of its value, which cannot be seen or touched.
As usual, the problem stems from lack of a concrete definition (Korzybski). The word 'money' means different things to different people, so unless we can arrive at an objective definition we can all agree on, we're just talking past each other.
You know, I almost wish I'd never read that guy because this problem leaps out at me everywhere now, including in my own writing.
But here's my best shot. 'Medium of Exchange.' OK, that's straightforward enough, although 'standard unit of exchange' might better capture it. But what do we mean by 'Store of Value?' Store is straightforward - something we put aside for later, but "Value?" That's completely abstract. It implies that I have the same notion of value as everyone else, and that's far from certain. Does it mean "buys the same amount of X today as it did last year?" Clearly no longer the case. So why store it when it's depreciating? Spend it on something that *might* retain it's *value* such as a painting by Picasso? What if art buyers tire of Picasso? How about a Gibson Les Paul guitar? That might be a good store of value. Point is, it's entirely subjective.
Even gold doesn't function as a reliable 'store of value.' Look what happened here for example, when gold was still 'money.'
or what about NFTs? I don't see any problem with your "medium of exchange" definition but money is not the only medium of exchange... Languages are media of exchange in which meaning is exchanged. It seems to me money is the equivalent, but that nominalization and numeric denomination is essential to money. It seems to attempt to reduce what can be measured to quantity, thereby quantifying quality... it seems to me that is a big part of the problem - the totalitarian desire of control freak to impose standard "official" forms of order onto natural "vernacular" forms of order. Examples are endless - test scores, IQ scores, credit ratings, the metric system, clock time, calendars, citation scores, etc...
"Medium of exchange" seems like a good start but I bet we could build on it. How could the definition be made more specific? Perhaps it would be good to define credit and then contrast it to money. Credit existed long before coinage.
Are you sure you're not overthinking it? Medium of exchange is a well established definition of money. It doesn't matter what the medium is as long as it's mutually agreed upon. Historically gold and silver have played that role, gold for large denominations, silver for small, according to their relative scarcity. Copper and nickel for even smaller denominations as both are more abundant. Problems arise when you have to transport large amounts of gold over distance because it's heavy, not to mention a target for bandits. Better to keep it in one place and just swap bits of paper representing claims on gold in a vault, whose security is guaranteed by the nation issuing the bits of paper, which of course implies trust.
Not of importance to the average citizen of the past since they only needed small amounts anyway. The larger transactions were more a matter between nations or large trading houses, who kept each other honest by weighing the amounts involved. Problems arise when you issue more paper than there is gold of course, but that will show up fairly quickly as a rise in prices, the response to which will be to discount the paper thus issued.
This is one subject that's been covered extensively by all the economists so there isn't really much to add to it. The US left the domestic gold standard in the 30's because they didn't have enough gold to back all the currency issued, and then reneged on gold as an international standard in 1971 when France called their bluff. It's more complicated than that of course, but that's the essence of it. Once trust in your paper is gone, inflation ensues, which is misleading because it's not really a rise in prices so much as a discounting of the value of the paper issued. Scarcity will drive a rise in prices as well, but that's not inflation, that's just the market responding to demand.
Although I've invested in gold miners I never owned any gold myself. I always found it amusing that people would dig the stuff up only to rebury it in a vault somewhere. Seems like a wasted effort to me, but as long as people want the stuff I guess it will continue, whether or not it ever becomes money again.
What do you think of Elon Musk's definition of money?
“Money, in my view, is essentially an information system for labor allocation, so it has no power in and of itself; it's like a database for guiding people as to what they should do.”
I'm not aware of a better single-sentence definition... are you?
It's quite a broad and ambiguous statement... it harkens back to the labour theory of value, but it emphasizes that the monetary system itself is a tool for allocating human creative energy, which is about as much of a zoomed-out, big picture perspective as I've heard anyone declare.
If I were to critique it I would say that it pretends to be ideologically neutral, but isn't... Whose tool is it? The fact is that money must have a limited supply in order to function... who determines the limits of that supply?
Also I would argue that value ultimately derives from natural processes as well as human labour.
What I like about it is that he appears to not fetishize money, which he clearly distinguishes from wealth. He sees money as a way to move wealth around, which means that he sees money and wealth as two distinct things.
I'm working on a taxonomy of different types of value. So far, the list includes:
-Use Value
-Exchange Value
-Sentimental Value
-Social Value
-Aesthetic Value
-Moral Value
-Spiritual Value
-Inherent Value
One thing that seems clear to me is that desire and value are inseparable - they are the supply and demand side if we're to use an economic metaphor, positive and negative if we're to use an electrical metaphor, masculine and feminine if we're to use a gendered metaphor...
The question of revolution then becomes: How do revolutionize our own desire? How do we change what we value?
Those two questions are two sides of the same coin.
"I'm working on a taxonomy of different types of value."
Good idea. I'm sure Mr. K would approve. It's never a bad idea to refine the meaning of the abstract nouns we use. It will slow down your writing though, at least it does mine, because I always find myself wondering if I used the right word and how it might be misread.
I think that's why I prefer songs and poems to reading straight prose. A song or poem, if well written, lends itself to interpretation - what McLuhan called the "user as content." One of the singers in a band I like made it explicit. She said the words (to her songs) don't have any particular meaning - they are just a framework on which to hang your own interpretations. I though that was brilliant. I love singers that do that, but dislike those who sing about their own personal angst, like Alanis Morissette. Still, I guess there's a place for that as well or she wouldn't be so popular. I recall a "Daughter" concert I went to featuring vocalist Elena Tonra where she had just about everyone (except me...lol) in tears, she was so good at it. Leaving the concert I overheard one young lady say to another, "I think I'll go home, eat some ice cream and have a good cry." Now that's what I call effective!
"The fact is that money must have a limited supply in order to function... who determines the limits of that supply?"
The gold bugs will tell you that gold is money because it's scarcity limits supply, so it's 'value' is determined by the amount of work needed to dig it up. That idea worked well enough until the Spaniards flooded the market with gold from the Americas, which then caused price inflation for the next 150 years.
I really don't know if gold makes sense today, or if it's just a historic relic, as some claim. I made some money in gold explorers, but never actually owned any myself. Never even bothered with gold wedding rings for my second (and final) marriage...lol. My wife has a Thai ruby on her ring finger. Looks a lot nicer than gold. Myself I don't wear one. Almost lost a finger with the first one. Rings are a bad idea if you work with machinery.
Musk says a lot of things. I try not to pay too much attention to the guy. Some people think that being wealthy is a sign of intelligence or wisdom. I doubt that based on the wealthy people I've met and the various utterances of others, like Bill Gates for instance. Most wealth is inherited anyway. Not hard to make millions if you're starting point is a million.
Programmable money is only nefarious because of the techno/fascist ideology that'll be deployed by oligarchs worldwide to reinstate neofeudalism by devolving into a technocratic biosecurity surveillance state.
Agreed. It's still a massive improvement over fiat currency though. And it seems quite resistant to co-optation.
Bitcoin doesn't fix the problem of extreme wealth inequality but it does fix the problem of the global economic system being a massive pyramid scheme designed to funnel wealth upwards.
It's pretty amazing tech, though as an anti-industrialist I'm not a huge cheerleader for it. But it's a MASSIVE improvement over fiat currency.
I am thinking of coming out as a maximalist though, because I think that it's the frontrunner to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
I'm sure I would draw heat from the anti-crypto crowd, though, so I'm trying to really think things through first.
If anyone has any arguments pro or against Bitcoin maximalism I'm all ears.
I disagree. Objects have a purpose behind them, from which you can judge their inherent value for good or evil. A knife"wants" to cut, and what it cuts is what it is made to cut. An AR15 is designed for shooting people; it "wants" to kill people. An atom bomb?
Is a chair leg from a church pew the same as a chair leg from an electric chair?
I can use a guillotine for slicing cheese as well, but it's purpose is for something else. People make things to be used; they have that desire built in to them. A stone is neutral: it can be used to grind corn or hurt somebody because it has many uses, but more complicated artifacts are made to enact a desire, and using them puts you into their functional pathway where their design forces you into a specific action, the result of which can be beneficial or not.
I read that money is a claim on energy. I used to think it was a token of labour, but the energy idea makes more sense. Tim Watkins' blog has some ideas on this.
Government has to be despotic because it is a subset of people making decisions for the rest. The population is too big for everyone to know each other and reach consensus, so to keep things cohesive those who disagree will be forced to act in the interest of social order. Then, as in representative democracy, those who get power need to convince or engineer consent so it is geared towards charismatic or powerful people, who tend to be sociopaths and narcissists, who then rewrite the rules to entrench power when they can.
As much as I am for anarchism, if the grounds for it to function are not present, it won't happen. Equal access to resources and the inability to dominate is needed, which means the inability to have stored energy (food) or sedentism (villages, etc). Luckily, this is our future is the climate flips from the holocene into something like what went before. Hooray.
...or you could have a civilisation based on complex technology where women are just as "valued" as men because robots do all the hard work and everyone is just a meat cog under a totalitarian panopticon AI, as E M Forster wrote back in the day.
That's an awful lot of work you've put in front of me:) Don't know if I'll have time to address every point before your readers move on, but I'll try. First let me clear up some points:
"I like him for multiple reasons. He combines extreme intelligence with skepticism, erudition and worldliness. He is clearly well-read, but his perspective is clearly derived from his own experience."
Is there some other experience I could derive my perspective from? I do try to put myself in the other person's shoes, but ultimately our own experiences are going to be determinant. How is it possible to avoid that? Books are collections of other people's experiences, and I've read a fair number over the years, but if something written changes my perspective, it's still ME that's making the change, because I have to evaluate what I've read based on what I already know, or can find out under my own steam. I would ask that the reader consider the question: What perspective, or change of perspective, in your own life hasn't been the result of reflection based on your own experiences?
Erudition? "Rudition' might be a better description because I'm sometimes rude, for which I humbly apologize.
"From what I’ve pieced together, he’s lived all around the world, and absorbed many different cultural perspectives. Clearly, he is a student of life."
Travelled the world, but only lived in the UK, Canada and Spain. Very interested in other cultures, and languages. Speak Spanish fluently, passable French and Japanese, also have studied Punjabi Mandarin and Russian, but no claim to competency in the last three.
"I also like him because he challenges me constantly from ideological positions that I have never encountered IRL.
For instance, he’s been known to defend the much-reviled economic theory of Thomas Malthus. I’ve never met a Malthusian in the wild. Have you?"
If I recall correctly (too lazy to go back and look) I said that Malthus was correct for the time in which he lived (1766 – 1834). What he couldn't have predicted is the effect of the industrial revolution on food production, human labour and social organization. Mechanization of agriculture didn't get started until 1868 with the introduction of the first steam tractor, and it was several decades before that became the dominate aspect in tillage, planting and harvesting, along with other factors such as crop rotation, inter-cropping, chemical fertilizers and insecticides.
All these developments had a huge impact on food production, labour migration (to the industrial centres) trade, and education (to run the more complex economy) just to name a few. One of the effects of the industrial revolution was a reduction in birth rates at a time of soaring food production. Every western nation experienced a decline in births to the point where all of them now have birth rates below replacement levels. Grain went from a domestic consumable to a major export item, with millions of tons being shipped to less developed nations, who eventually underwent their own 'green revolutions' with similar effects on population.
How could Malthus have predicted any of that? It's worth noting that just as he was limited by his own perception of what was possible given the technology of his time, so are we limited by our perception of what's possible given current technological levels. I would argue that we're on the verge of another technological revolution that very few can perceive at this moment.
At the risk of drifting off topic, take a look at this picture. Ever seen anything like it?
Not only is huge demand for copper wire a thing of the past, modern cellular networks mean that even the poorest African nation now has complete telephone coverage because they don't have to build that kind of network. Same applies to nuclear technology which is going small-scale and modular, which will eliminate the massive investment needed for large-scale plants, and transmission networks.
Here's a comical look at that possible future from Tatarstan, a major industrial centre of the USSR....er... Russia. Song's called, I'm not a collective farm girl. Take it away, Leina!
I'll just add that it's never a good idea to take yourself too seriously because you can never tell what's around the next corner. Malthus couldn't, and like him, we could be perfectly correct in our predictions based on current knowledge, but still way off the mark when it comes to the future. One more point. I'm a skeptic, not a cynic. An optimist, not a nihilist. Even if it all seems hopeless I'll still keep plowing away, preferably with a modern tractor, but I'll use a horse if I have to.
"The reason that I’m writing this is because we’ve recently gotten into quite an interesting discussion about human nature, morality, and economics.
Ebear likes to challenge me on my anarchism, which he sees as naive."
I wouldn't say naive. It's obviously a well developed ideology, which is my main point: that it IS an ideology, and as such suffers the same limitations as other ideologies such as Communism, Capitalism, Democracy, Monarchy and so forth. To one degree or another they all neglect the human factor, which is oriented towards self-serving short-term goals. It's a natural bias of all living creatures. How you address that is my main concern. I don't have the answer, but how can you make any progress if you don't ask the right questions? The founders (USA) understood that at a political level and tried to create institutions that would act as checks and balances on aberrant political behaviour. I would argue we need something similar at the psychological level that acts as a brake on psychopathy and anti-social behaviour in general. They understood this in the USSR, but they went about it the wrong way, which only alienated people and drove cynicism to an extreme.
There's a passage in one of my favourite books, the Tao Te Ching, which captures this exactly.
The Way of Subtle Influence
Superior leaders are those whose existence is merely known;
I love this: "It's worth noting that just as he was limited by his own perception of what was possible given the technology of his time, so are we limited by our perception of what's possible given current technological levels."
Very true. Furthermore, many of our assumptions about what is possible could be wrong.
At the end of the day the problem is vice, ie the 7 deadly sins. Thats why ive become more sympathetic to religion in recent years. The worst aspects of capitalism boil down to greed, envy, pride and gluttony.
You too eh? Lately I've been taking a close look at Islamic exegesis. Reading the Koran and Hadiths, but also contemporary interpretations. My original attitude was that Islam was incapable of reform because it lacked a 'New Testament' which is to say, an authoritative voice to tell us that "we don't do things that way anymore."
I suspect I was wrong. First, Islam has no central authority other than the Koran, which is written in Arabic (which I don't speak) and owing to the nature of that language, can be interpreted in many different ways. I didn't know that. I though it was The Law, and that was that. What I see now is a progressive element rising to leadership across all sects which have as a basic principle the putting aside of differences (Shiite vs Sunni for example) and focusing on the core principles, foremost of which is Charity - one of the five pillars and just as important to Muslims as Paul's admonition to the Corinthians. I've even adopted one of their practices, the Zakat, which is obligatory charitable donation based on one's income. Solves a lot of problems actually since you don't have to fret over how stingy or generous you are - it's right there in the Koran, so all you have to do is follow it. Not a great burden, and it leaves you feeling like you've actually done something to help.
I'm also a huge fan of Muslim music, both the secular and religious varieties. Like this song, which even though I don't understand Chechen, reaches right into my heart!
Capitalism brings with it a 2-edged sword. It's safe to say that capitalism, as an economic "system," has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system. But . . . unbridled greed has led to brutalizing and monopolizing the resources of peoples who continued to live in poverty, because of greedy capitalists.
Hmm... One could argue that capitalism lifted people out of poverty that it created... I'm thinking of the Conquista here... but then it might be argued that that was mercantilism, not capitalism.
Truthfully, I'm not sure where to draw the line between mercantilism and capitalism. But both involve predatory money-lending, so I'd say the underlying problem is usury.
Paul Cudenec and I are trying to phase out using the word "capitalism" to describe the economic system we're against because we want to make common cause with the market anarchists, who are against "crony capitalism" but all for a free market.
Another thought: is there a difference between use and purpose?
You can use money for making lives better, but is it's purpose this? What happens when it is used?
Money simplifies social obligations: you pay someone for something and this ends the obligation. In effect you are saying that you don't care any more.
It represents anything that can have a value, be it a potato or a unique work of art, making all things trivial. It abolishes that which is sacred.
If you take out a loan, you are in effect taking future energy (you pay back later) to convert a past process (making something, etc) into a present desire (a cool new kayak). Interest increases the amount of future energy needed beyond the worth of the present energy need. What happens if there is less energy in the future (get fired)?
The stuff is black magic, the very blackest. Down with money (unless I win the lottery)!
NO, evil is the root of all money...See Peter Lamborn Wilson on money, including in The New Nihilism. Also, there are two communisms. One from Karl Marx observing that with the Industrial Revolution came the catastrophic loss of the commons with self-sufficient country folk moved into poverty in toxic cities, forcing children into child labor in the mills that William Blake called "these dark Satanic mills." Marx wanted something very simple -- that the workers own the means of production. Which brings us to the second communism where evil human beings like Lenin and Stalin took over no matter what the system's name. Finally, your friend who breezily dismisses government as not being evil but rather it's the people who run the government -- that's obvious. By using the term government, we mean those people. Which however leaves unsaid the anarchist vision of a world without governments, without laws, without the whip
Malthus wrote his treatise in 1798. Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto in 1848 when he was only 30 years old, and completed Das Capital in 1894.
One of my favourite authors, Alfred Korzybski, who wrote Science and Sanity in 1933 had this habit that I'd never encountered before. Whenever he mentioned an accepted fact of science or philosophy he always prefaced it with "as of 1933" I eventually realized why he did that, and I would do it myself if I every wrote a book (which is unlikely). Basically he was making explicit what we should by habit always consider: the time in which a work was written. Marx got a lot of things right *for his time* but he was no more able to predict the future than Malthus or any of us here for that matter. Think back just a few decades when the "Peace Dividend" was all you read about in the Wall Street Journal or NY Times. How did that work out? That's only 35 years! Das Capital is now 130 years old. Let's give the guy a break already:)
"Marx wanted something very simple -- that the workers own the means of production."
Which just might have worked back then, but even in those days things were already fairly complicated. Today they're massively more complex to the point where I'm convinced that not one living person today has a complete picture on how things actually operate. There's even a "Theory of Complexity" that's arisen to address the problem.
Part of the problem is Specialization. You need years of study just to comprehend a single discipline. In some cases half an adult lifetime just to achieve a measure of competency. Meanwhile, we have these lunatic ideologues dismantling education in the name of some hare-brained theory of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Add to that two years where primary education was rudely interrupted by a fear driven panic which traumatized an entire generation. Those are the people who are going to have to learn how to manage our economy and social institutions, many of which are already failing. Where are those future specialists going to come from, not to mention the generalists who can at least frame the larger picture and direct the specialists effectively? That isn't even taught as a discipline yet, outside of some sketchy business management schools teaching yesterday's concepts as if they had any applicability to today's increasingly complex world.
I mean, look how many words it took me just to say that? Who has the patience for that even?
"By using the term government, we mean those people."
I suffer from the affliction of having read Korzybski, who pounded the table on making everything we say as explicit as possible so's not to be misunderstood. This is the core of good communication - being clear about what we mean, because sure as shit if we're not, someone will read it the wrong way or put their own spin on it.
I would argue that most people don't consider the human element when talking about the abstraction we call government. Most people have this naive concept that people are inherently good because that's how they see themselves. They don't often see the evil in others (not to mention themselves) until it jumps up and bites them hard in the ass. At that point they become disillusioned and almost impossible to reach because once bitten, twice shy. If you start out by saying what you mean, and meaning what you say, there's less chance for that to happen IMO.
Good points. I think I completely agree with you, although i might be more skeptical about Marxs true intentions than you are.
Thank you for your nice post and the idea to have a discussion between your own and one of your reader's points of view !!
Money isn't everything, but without money everything is nothing ...
Humanity's transition from an intrinsic egalitarian, highly independent, fully self-reliable/-responsible hunter-gatherer society encompassing only hundreds of individuals to highly complex, fully interdependent, highly stratified mass-societies with division of labor that led to loss of any individual sense of responsibility for the whole or reliability for himself may turn our kin's worst mistake ...
Money, whatever shape (even booze, matches or shaving-blades) has its time in history and circumstances. It should serve as a means to avoid direct bartering only. Whoever gets to worshipping it (by holding or craving for it without creating added-value) is definitively mentally sick.
You do realize that one whole paragraph was a run-on sentence.......LOL.
Hope there were no short-circuits in between ...🤣🤣
Run-on sentences are fine, as long as you put the commas in the right place and the syntax isn't too convoluted:) Form vs. Content. They both matter, but usually content wins.
Andrei Martyanov (who is Russian and thus forgiven) is one of the worst writers from a formal perspective, but his ideas are so on-point I tend to overlook that. Peter Duke likewise has a neurological disorder that cause him to stutter, but I'm patient about it because he has some great ideas.
hey ebear, does this pass the sniff test of General Semantics?
WHAT IS LINGUISTIC VALUE?
Most people reading this will have no difficulty understanding what Graeber means by “value” in the economic sense, or “values” in the sociological sense, but you might not know what linguistic value is.
Basically, a word has two parts - the signifier and the signified.
Shit, poop, doo-doo, caca, mierda, merde, and scheisse are all words for excrement. They mean the same thing. Their linguistic value is identical.
Another way of thinking of words would separate the form and content. The different words listed above have different forms, but the same content. They signify the same object.
Words are basically delivery mechanisms for meaning, or essence.
I was going to make an analogy because I want to argue that the essence of money is immaterial... if five loonies have an identical value to a 5-dollar bill, and that money can be deposited and withdrawn from bank accounts without losing any of its essence, its essence includes convertibility and hence cannot be said to be material.
Is this a semantically solid argument?
5-dollar bill and 'loonie' both have referents. They are both material objects I can point to. If I ask you to go to the bank and get me 5 loonies for this fiver, I've just described a process that can be operationalized, assuming the bank is open. No confusion as to what's meant by any of the terms. Some confusion may arise if you've just arrived from Spain and don't know what a loonie is, but you can point to one and say "that's what we call a one dollar coin" and the Spaniard will say, ah... so like a 'duro!" (5 peseta coin). Thus the referent is established without further description. It's just substituting one word for another with the same meaning, like when the bikers say 'feces occur.'
I'll agree that money is an abstraction that depend on shared meaning, but the value we attach to any particular amount is subject to our personal sense of value which varies from one person to the next. If I'm shopping for groceries and I see apples at $2/lb then I know exactly what the value of those apples are to the seller. Whether I feel it's good value is entirely subjective, and if I have an apple tree (which I do) I might snort in derision and just go pick my own.
Likewise, I've been offered $5000 for my Jeep XJ which has a book value of $4500 according to ICBC, but I've seen them sell for as high as $25,000! Would I sell mine for that? Probably not because I like my Jeep more than I do $25,000, and I'd have to find a replacement vehicle so subtract that from the 'value' plus the trouble of finding one given that 'time is money' especially when you don't have a lot of it left:)
This whole concept of 'value' is central to what I'm talking about with abstract nouns. not only do we lack concrete definitions, but we don't have a shared value. Remember my ex-wife's uncle, the Republican captain? For him, communism had enough value to refuse early parole. He could have been out in 5 but did the whole 20 year stretch. Communism has a certain value for me as well, but it's nothing I'd do time for, much less take up arms.
Korzybski separates words into those that have referents, and those that don't. A referent can be a physical object, a process that can be 'operationalized' that is to say, given a set of instructions can be repeated, or denotes a physical location or time.
So 'tree' or 'bulldozer' are concrete nouns, as are words like 'today' or 'Ottawa.' There's no confusion as to what we're referring to. If we want to be more precise we can tack on adjectives, like old oak tree or rusty yellow bulldozer, but the referent is still there and we don't lose the objective meaning. Likewise, Margarita or Waldorf Salad are concrete because I can give you instructions on how to make them. They won't turn out exactly the same each time, but close enough that there's no confusion as to what you're getting (unless you're Basil Fawlty).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoUH43nI4w
That part's easy, it's the abstract nouns we have to worry about, because here the meaning is easily lost. Communism. Capitalism. Eroticism. They all lack referents and can thus mean different things to different people. Stuart Chase in "The Tyranny of Words" put it to the test. He asked a dozen people what the word 'Fascism' means, and got a dozen different answers. Even worse, abstract nouns can be used as pejoratives, such as 'right-wing extremist' referring to anyone wearing a MAGA hat.
"Basically, a word has two parts - the signifier and the signified."
I think you're confusing semantics with semiotics. Semiotics makes no attempt (that I'm aware of) to separate words into concrete and abstract categories. The 'signified' can be anything described using other words, as in a dictionary, whereas a concrete noun has an objective referent that we all understand without further elaboration, such as a time, a place, a physical object or an executable process.
I'm not saying don't use abstract nouns - there's really no way to avoid them. The point is to recognize when we use them, and to clarify our meaning as closely as possible when we do, which is why any good book in science or philosophy has a glossary that explains the meaning of the words used in their specific context.
"Words are basically delivery mechanisms for meaning, or essence."
Yes, but they're often used to mislead. Such as 'vaccine' when what what you're actually getting is an experimental gene therapy, and a rather nasty one at that.
Yes. Not only immaterial (like numbers, in general) but also complex (as in x + iy), money has "real" and "imaginary" elements. Tokens (physical notes, coin, beads, etc.) are the real components, whereas symbols ($, €, ¥ etc.) with attached numbers are the imaginary components.
George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of Form" introduced the 'imaginary' to classify unresolvable propositions, such as "I always lie," which seem self-contradictory, since logically, if that statement is true, it must itself be a lie; meaning, "I always tell the truth", which means "I always lie", etc., etc. Such "re-entrant" proposition appear in maths and physics as "feedbacks" which lead to infinite series or "oscillations" which produce "screeching microphones".
For GSB, logic requires three categories: [T]rue, [F]alse & [I]maginary.
Love it.
It's "The love of money, is the root of all evil" people always leave the last bit out.
Funniest one of all is people say "The proof is in the pudding" where I live anyway, funny funny when I hear it, looked it up decades ago because it never made sense and it's
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating"
makes sense that you would need to eat the alleged pudding first to know.
Half the information missing in everything now, nothing can be taken at face value anymore.
Money like technology is "not" good or evil, as its an inanimate object. The most nefarious things in every culture are not the artifacts, but their implementation by dubious two legged living organisms.😁
Okay, sure, but just for the sake of argument, are CBDCs ideologically neutral?
And IS money even an object?
Is water an object? Is fire an object?
I'm tripping balls, man!
Okay, I looked up "object. The primary definition of object is "a material thing that can be seen and touched".
So, fire and water are objects, but money is arguably not, because what makes it money is the convertibility of its value, which cannot be seen or touched.
As usual, the problem stems from lack of a concrete definition (Korzybski). The word 'money' means different things to different people, so unless we can arrive at an objective definition we can all agree on, we're just talking past each other.
You know, I almost wish I'd never read that guy because this problem leaps out at me everywhere now, including in my own writing.
But here's my best shot. 'Medium of Exchange.' OK, that's straightforward enough, although 'standard unit of exchange' might better capture it. But what do we mean by 'Store of Value?' Store is straightforward - something we put aside for later, but "Value?" That's completely abstract. It implies that I have the same notion of value as everyone else, and that's far from certain. Does it mean "buys the same amount of X today as it did last year?" Clearly no longer the case. So why store it when it's depreciating? Spend it on something that *might* retain it's *value* such as a painting by Picasso? What if art buyers tire of Picasso? How about a Gibson Les Paul guitar? That might be a good store of value. Point is, it's entirely subjective.
Even gold doesn't function as a reliable 'store of value.' Look what happened here for example, when gold was still 'money.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution
I gotta give this a break. I had things to do today and instead I'm doing this!
or what about NFTs? I don't see any problem with your "medium of exchange" definition but money is not the only medium of exchange... Languages are media of exchange in which meaning is exchanged. It seems to me money is the equivalent, but that nominalization and numeric denomination is essential to money. It seems to attempt to reduce what can be measured to quantity, thereby quantifying quality... it seems to me that is a big part of the problem - the totalitarian desire of control freak to impose standard "official" forms of order onto natural "vernacular" forms of order. Examples are endless - test scores, IQ scores, credit ratings, the metric system, clock time, calendars, citation scores, etc...
"Medium of exchange" seems like a good start but I bet we could build on it. How could the definition be made more specific? Perhaps it would be good to define credit and then contrast it to money. Credit existed long before coinage.
Are you sure you're not overthinking it? Medium of exchange is a well established definition of money. It doesn't matter what the medium is as long as it's mutually agreed upon. Historically gold and silver have played that role, gold for large denominations, silver for small, according to their relative scarcity. Copper and nickel for even smaller denominations as both are more abundant. Problems arise when you have to transport large amounts of gold over distance because it's heavy, not to mention a target for bandits. Better to keep it in one place and just swap bits of paper representing claims on gold in a vault, whose security is guaranteed by the nation issuing the bits of paper, which of course implies trust.
Not of importance to the average citizen of the past since they only needed small amounts anyway. The larger transactions were more a matter between nations or large trading houses, who kept each other honest by weighing the amounts involved. Problems arise when you issue more paper than there is gold of course, but that will show up fairly quickly as a rise in prices, the response to which will be to discount the paper thus issued.
This is one subject that's been covered extensively by all the economists so there isn't really much to add to it. The US left the domestic gold standard in the 30's because they didn't have enough gold to back all the currency issued, and then reneged on gold as an international standard in 1971 when France called their bluff. It's more complicated than that of course, but that's the essence of it. Once trust in your paper is gone, inflation ensues, which is misleading because it's not really a rise in prices so much as a discounting of the value of the paper issued. Scarcity will drive a rise in prices as well, but that's not inflation, that's just the market responding to demand.
Although I've invested in gold miners I never owned any gold myself. I always found it amusing that people would dig the stuff up only to rebury it in a vault somewhere. Seems like a wasted effort to me, but as long as people want the stuff I guess it will continue, whether or not it ever becomes money again.
What do you think of Elon Musk's definition of money?
“Money, in my view, is essentially an information system for labor allocation, so it has no power in and of itself; it's like a database for guiding people as to what they should do.”
I'm not aware of a better single-sentence definition... are you?
It's quite a broad and ambiguous statement... it harkens back to the labour theory of value, but it emphasizes that the monetary system itself is a tool for allocating human creative energy, which is about as much of a zoomed-out, big picture perspective as I've heard anyone declare.
If I were to critique it I would say that it pretends to be ideologically neutral, but isn't... Whose tool is it? The fact is that money must have a limited supply in order to function... who determines the limits of that supply?
Also I would argue that value ultimately derives from natural processes as well as human labour.
What I like about it is that he appears to not fetishize money, which he clearly distinguishes from wealth. He sees money as a way to move wealth around, which means that he sees money and wealth as two distinct things.
I'm working on a taxonomy of different types of value. So far, the list includes:
-Use Value
-Exchange Value
-Sentimental Value
-Social Value
-Aesthetic Value
-Moral Value
-Spiritual Value
-Inherent Value
One thing that seems clear to me is that desire and value are inseparable - they are the supply and demand side if we're to use an economic metaphor, positive and negative if we're to use an electrical metaphor, masculine and feminine if we're to use a gendered metaphor...
The question of revolution then becomes: How do revolutionize our own desire? How do we change what we value?
Those two questions are two sides of the same coin.
"I'm working on a taxonomy of different types of value."
Good idea. I'm sure Mr. K would approve. It's never a bad idea to refine the meaning of the abstract nouns we use. It will slow down your writing though, at least it does mine, because I always find myself wondering if I used the right word and how it might be misread.
I think that's why I prefer songs and poems to reading straight prose. A song or poem, if well written, lends itself to interpretation - what McLuhan called the "user as content." One of the singers in a band I like made it explicit. She said the words (to her songs) don't have any particular meaning - they are just a framework on which to hang your own interpretations. I though that was brilliant. I love singers that do that, but dislike those who sing about their own personal angst, like Alanis Morissette. Still, I guess there's a place for that as well or she wouldn't be so popular. I recall a "Daughter" concert I went to featuring vocalist Elena Tonra where she had just about everyone (except me...lol) in tears, she was so good at it. Leaving the concert I overheard one young lady say to another, "I think I'll go home, eat some ice cream and have a good cry." Now that's what I call effective!
Would you be down to write a short intro to General Semantics?
"The fact is that money must have a limited supply in order to function... who determines the limits of that supply?"
The gold bugs will tell you that gold is money because it's scarcity limits supply, so it's 'value' is determined by the amount of work needed to dig it up. That idea worked well enough until the Spaniards flooded the market with gold from the Americas, which then caused price inflation for the next 150 years.
I really don't know if gold makes sense today, or if it's just a historic relic, as some claim. I made some money in gold explorers, but never actually owned any myself. Never even bothered with gold wedding rings for my second (and final) marriage...lol. My wife has a Thai ruby on her ring finger. Looks a lot nicer than gold. Myself I don't wear one. Almost lost a finger with the first one. Rings are a bad idea if you work with machinery.
Musk says a lot of things. I try not to pay too much attention to the guy. Some people think that being wealthy is a sign of intelligence or wisdom. I doubt that based on the wealthy people I've met and the various utterances of others, like Bill Gates for instance. Most wealth is inherited anyway. Not hard to make millions if you're starting point is a million.
Can you point to a better single-sentence definition of money? I can't.
Programmable money is only nefarious because of the techno/fascist ideology that'll be deployed by oligarchs worldwide to reinstate neofeudalism by devolving into a technocratic biosecurity surveillance state.
I think Bitcoin is a massive improvement over fiat currency, but I'm highly dubious about the alleged value of smart contracts...
Bitcoin is already being
co-opted by the trillion dollar asset management firms.
Agreed. It's still a massive improvement over fiat currency though. And it seems quite resistant to co-optation.
Bitcoin doesn't fix the problem of extreme wealth inequality but it does fix the problem of the global economic system being a massive pyramid scheme designed to funnel wealth upwards.
It's pretty amazing tech, though as an anti-industrialist I'm not a huge cheerleader for it. But it's a MASSIVE improvement over fiat currency.
I am thinking of coming out as a maximalist though, because I think that it's the frontrunner to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.
I'm sure I would draw heat from the anti-crypto crowd, though, so I'm trying to really think things through first.
If anyone has any arguments pro or against Bitcoin maximalism I'm all ears.
I disagree. Objects have a purpose behind them, from which you can judge their inherent value for good or evil. A knife"wants" to cut, and what it cuts is what it is made to cut. An AR15 is designed for shooting people; it "wants" to kill people. An atom bomb?
Is a chair leg from a church pew the same as a chair leg from an electric chair?
A knife can also butter bread.
I can use a guillotine for slicing cheese as well, but it's purpose is for something else. People make things to be used; they have that desire built in to them. A stone is neutral: it can be used to grind corn or hurt somebody because it has many uses, but more complicated artifacts are made to enact a desire, and using them puts you into their functional pathway where their design forces you into a specific action, the result of which can be beneficial or not.
My original post notes that the intention of cultural artifacts or objects are determined by the mentality of humans.
Btw, using a guillotine to slice cheese for a sandwich might be considered "overkill." 😁
You haven't seen my sandwiches!
They must be club-style sandwiches. 🔨😁
I read that money is a claim on energy. I used to think it was a token of labour, but the energy idea makes more sense. Tim Watkins' blog has some ideas on this.
Government has to be despotic because it is a subset of people making decisions for the rest. The population is too big for everyone to know each other and reach consensus, so to keep things cohesive those who disagree will be forced to act in the interest of social order. Then, as in representative democracy, those who get power need to convince or engineer consent so it is geared towards charismatic or powerful people, who tend to be sociopaths and narcissists, who then rewrite the rules to entrench power when they can.
As much as I am for anarchism, if the grounds for it to function are not present, it won't happen. Equal access to resources and the inability to dominate is needed, which means the inability to have stored energy (food) or sedentism (villages, etc). Luckily, this is our future is the climate flips from the holocene into something like what went before. Hooray.
...or you could have a civilisation based on complex technology where women are just as "valued" as men because robots do all the hard work and everyone is just a meat cog under a totalitarian panopticon AI, as E M Forster wrote back in the day.
That's an awful lot of work you've put in front of me:) Don't know if I'll have time to address every point before your readers move on, but I'll try. First let me clear up some points:
"I like him for multiple reasons. He combines extreme intelligence with skepticism, erudition and worldliness. He is clearly well-read, but his perspective is clearly derived from his own experience."
Is there some other experience I could derive my perspective from? I do try to put myself in the other person's shoes, but ultimately our own experiences are going to be determinant. How is it possible to avoid that? Books are collections of other people's experiences, and I've read a fair number over the years, but if something written changes my perspective, it's still ME that's making the change, because I have to evaluate what I've read based on what I already know, or can find out under my own steam. I would ask that the reader consider the question: What perspective, or change of perspective, in your own life hasn't been the result of reflection based on your own experiences?
Erudition? "Rudition' might be a better description because I'm sometimes rude, for which I humbly apologize.
"From what I’ve pieced together, he’s lived all around the world, and absorbed many different cultural perspectives. Clearly, he is a student of life."
Travelled the world, but only lived in the UK, Canada and Spain. Very interested in other cultures, and languages. Speak Spanish fluently, passable French and Japanese, also have studied Punjabi Mandarin and Russian, but no claim to competency in the last three.
"I also like him because he challenges me constantly from ideological positions that I have never encountered IRL.
For instance, he’s been known to defend the much-reviled economic theory of Thomas Malthus. I’ve never met a Malthusian in the wild. Have you?"
If I recall correctly (too lazy to go back and look) I said that Malthus was correct for the time in which he lived (1766 – 1834). What he couldn't have predicted is the effect of the industrial revolution on food production, human labour and social organization. Mechanization of agriculture didn't get started until 1868 with the introduction of the first steam tractor, and it was several decades before that became the dominate aspect in tillage, planting and harvesting, along with other factors such as crop rotation, inter-cropping, chemical fertilizers and insecticides.
All these developments had a huge impact on food production, labour migration (to the industrial centres) trade, and education (to run the more complex economy) just to name a few. One of the effects of the industrial revolution was a reduction in birth rates at a time of soaring food production. Every western nation experienced a decline in births to the point where all of them now have birth rates below replacement levels. Grain went from a domestic consumable to a major export item, with millions of tons being shipped to less developed nations, who eventually underwent their own 'green revolutions' with similar effects on population.
How could Malthus have predicted any of that? It's worth noting that just as he was limited by his own perception of what was possible given the technology of his time, so are we limited by our perception of what's possible given current technological levels. I would argue that we're on the verge of another technological revolution that very few can perceive at this moment.
At the risk of drifting off topic, take a look at this picture. Ever seen anything like it?
http://www.s-hamilton.us/other/ComputerClub/TelephonePole2.jpg
Not only is huge demand for copper wire a thing of the past, modern cellular networks mean that even the poorest African nation now has complete telephone coverage because they don't have to build that kind of network. Same applies to nuclear technology which is going small-scale and modular, which will eliminate the massive investment needed for large-scale plants, and transmission networks.
Here's a comical look at that possible future from Tatarstan, a major industrial centre of the USSR....er... Russia. Song's called, I'm not a collective farm girl. Take it away, Leina!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iGQ4lbyz_Y
I'll just add that it's never a good idea to take yourself too seriously because you can never tell what's around the next corner. Malthus couldn't, and like him, we could be perfectly correct in our predictions based on current knowledge, but still way off the mark when it comes to the future. One more point. I'm a skeptic, not a cynic. An optimist, not a nihilist. Even if it all seems hopeless I'll still keep plowing away, preferably with a modern tractor, but I'll use a horse if I have to.
"The reason that I’m writing this is because we’ve recently gotten into quite an interesting discussion about human nature, morality, and economics.
Ebear likes to challenge me on my anarchism, which he sees as naive."
I wouldn't say naive. It's obviously a well developed ideology, which is my main point: that it IS an ideology, and as such suffers the same limitations as other ideologies such as Communism, Capitalism, Democracy, Monarchy and so forth. To one degree or another they all neglect the human factor, which is oriented towards self-serving short-term goals. It's a natural bias of all living creatures. How you address that is my main concern. I don't have the answer, but how can you make any progress if you don't ask the right questions? The founders (USA) understood that at a political level and tried to create institutions that would act as checks and balances on aberrant political behaviour. I would argue we need something similar at the psychological level that acts as a brake on psychopathy and anti-social behaviour in general. They understood this in the USSR, but they went about it the wrong way, which only alienated people and drove cynicism to an extreme.
There's a passage in one of my favourite books, the Tao Te Ching, which captures this exactly.
The Way of Subtle Influence
Superior leaders are those whose existence is merely known;
The next best are loved and honored;
The next are respected;
And the next are ridiculed.
Those who lack belief
Will not in turn be believed.
But when the command comes from afar
And the work is done, the goal achieved,
The people say, "We did it naturally."
I love this: "It's worth noting that just as he was limited by his own perception of what was possible given the technology of his time, so are we limited by our perception of what's possible given current technological levels."
Very true. Furthermore, many of our assumptions about what is possible could be wrong.
It is not that money is evil; rather, it's that the love of money is evil; i.e., unbridled greed.
At the end of the day the problem is vice, ie the 7 deadly sins. Thats why ive become more sympathetic to religion in recent years. The worst aspects of capitalism boil down to greed, envy, pride and gluttony.
You too eh? Lately I've been taking a close look at Islamic exegesis. Reading the Koran and Hadiths, but also contemporary interpretations. My original attitude was that Islam was incapable of reform because it lacked a 'New Testament' which is to say, an authoritative voice to tell us that "we don't do things that way anymore."
I suspect I was wrong. First, Islam has no central authority other than the Koran, which is written in Arabic (which I don't speak) and owing to the nature of that language, can be interpreted in many different ways. I didn't know that. I though it was The Law, and that was that. What I see now is a progressive element rising to leadership across all sects which have as a basic principle the putting aside of differences (Shiite vs Sunni for example) and focusing on the core principles, foremost of which is Charity - one of the five pillars and just as important to Muslims as Paul's admonition to the Corinthians. I've even adopted one of their practices, the Zakat, which is obligatory charitable donation based on one's income. Solves a lot of problems actually since you don't have to fret over how stingy or generous you are - it's right there in the Koran, so all you have to do is follow it. Not a great burden, and it leaves you feeling like you've actually done something to help.
I'm also a huge fan of Muslim music, both the secular and religious varieties. Like this song, which even though I don't understand Chechen, reaches right into my heart!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vj9BewgpoY
Capitalism brings with it a 2-edged sword. It's safe to say that capitalism, as an economic "system," has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system. But . . . unbridled greed has led to brutalizing and monopolizing the resources of peoples who continued to live in poverty, because of greedy capitalists.
Hmm... One could argue that capitalism lifted people out of poverty that it created... I'm thinking of the Conquista here... but then it might be argued that that was mercantilism, not capitalism.
Truthfully, I'm not sure where to draw the line between mercantilism and capitalism. But both involve predatory money-lending, so I'd say the underlying problem is usury.
Paul Cudenec and I are trying to phase out using the word "capitalism" to describe the economic system we're against because we want to make common cause with the market anarchists, who are against "crony capitalism" but all for a free market.
Another thought: is there a difference between use and purpose?
You can use money for making lives better, but is it's purpose this? What happens when it is used?
Money simplifies social obligations: you pay someone for something and this ends the obligation. In effect you are saying that you don't care any more.
It represents anything that can have a value, be it a potato or a unique work of art, making all things trivial. It abolishes that which is sacred.
If you take out a loan, you are in effect taking future energy (you pay back later) to convert a past process (making something, etc) into a present desire (a cool new kayak). Interest increases the amount of future energy needed beyond the worth of the present energy need. What happens if there is less energy in the future (get fired)?
The stuff is black magic, the very blackest. Down with money (unless I win the lottery)!