As a way out I now think of creating pockets of moneyless economies, because EVERYTHING that we express in money seems to fall prey to the capitalists: The first step is putting a price tag on your land, the next is you selling out. I feel more and more that the dollar (the universal currency) is the culprit, the reason why all conspiracy theories are wrong because they are completely unnecessary: The system has the vast majority of people voluntarily using the universal currency as the only value-function of their labor and their life.
Am I missing something here?
1) They express everything in dollars in order to bring it within reach of their power. When something is dollarized, when it has a price, it can no longer escape from the gravity of the system.
2) Things need to be optimized in the system: That which can extract the most value ($) from a resource, must eventually prevail and all else must die out. The people have lost their land.
3) The exploited are put to work in a factory/sweat shops because that is what gives them more dollars. They have thus optimized their position in the global economy: Their lives are worth more dollars than before. The people have lost their freedom.
4) The world economy goes bad. They have lost their land and their health and are de facto slaves.
This process is all too familiar; it is the essence of capitalist expansion.
The real conspiracy is not a conspiracy. It is simply this: universal money has become the only way to communicate value.
The root of evil indeed is money. But do not forget possession.
It all started with the notion that one can own the land. With owning the land, one can put a price on it and sell it, culminating in wars foughts over the possession of lands and even its inhabitants.
Our planet Earth is not something we people can possess, the only thing we should do is take good care of her and treat her with respect. But this is in most cases not even something people will even consider (taking good care of her), as a matter of fact just the opposite, right?
But money does most of the evil, I agree!
Hi Esther,
Thank you for your comment. It always motivates me when I know I have a few real readers. As a matter of fact, I found myself here explaining issues like global warming, why governments aren’t doing anything, how it impacts us, what would be our last chance, and so on, to couchsurfers I meet here in South Asia. I realized that it might be useful if I write yet another book on it. Perhaps my background in philosophy finally becomes useful to me. I’d post fragments and try-outs of the book here, and ask my followers what they think. I’d like to find a very effective way (a narrating technique) of presenting all the information in a way that it really sticks and changes a few more minds.
So thank you for reading and sharing! It really inspires me to get to work.
One of these serendipitous things… I once encountered a woman-girl-person-thing, and she came up with this idea she thought to be random, but I thought to be brilliant: money is solidified energy.
A thought that never left me. Why not treat it as a physical entity indeed? And thus as a commodity? A limited commodity? What one needs to live, like bread?
I would say it’s a sensible thought. It’s something that behaves like the interchangable matter/energy. Only when it’s treated like something holy, incomprehensible, we will never get any further with the debate on how to handle it. But when we demystify it, and start treating it like ‘matter’ (or energy), what it essentially is, I would say, we can start treating it like a commodity. And thusly limit the possession of it.
That’s one of simple things I have to say about it.
Another thing what’s fairly simple I have to say is to link it back to the amount of gold. Which is also limited. (Otherwise this plan goes to hell and we can do away with the idea money altogether.(The idea of money is a phantom already, so why not.))
Since wehave the capability of feeding everybody on this planet, and the capability of solidarity, and the capability of distribution, why not the consider the idea conserving what we have? (This planet.) There is no need to increase our numbers to survive. No need for any more babies. As a species we can survive with smaller numbers. (Not that I am imlying scary behaviour, I just imply that we can do as a species with fewer numbers, without the need the bust our backbones to feed more and more babies.)(And building more robots to render our lives useless.) (And bust our backbones to feed more robots as well.)
What I think is maybe something of a dream. Maybe we get stupid enough to go to another planet.
Going to Mars will cost us about $400.000.000.000, just to put some 20 people there. What will probably result in a grave yard of the same price, so why not be rational about it.
When live is worth considering it, and we will need a shitload of effort to spread it across the galaxy, then we might need a shitload of economy to get it there. Not by the way of hey let’s try this or and try that as well, but to try it doing it rationally. Even when the only impetous is the one of fun of life.
Let’s try this one: life is useless. It doesn’t care about it’s substrate, it just cares about itself. So what do we bother, being its substrate, and follow its dictate, and go for it. And see if we can fuck the laws of nature, get to the other planets, just for fun. By redistributing money not from the point of view of solidarity (what is included by the endpoint), but by the point of distribution of life (uncaring in itself about its substrate).
And when everything might fail, see to it (what seems rational) to secure our life by securing our lifelyhood (sheep, monkeys, fish, trees, algea, shit like that).
Enfin, I could go on a few hours like this, sitting by the electronic illumination of the digital campfire. Unfortunately I am running out of beer, so I have to end this song. The proteine based substrate makes the scientient superstrate blink its eyes, indicating it to go search for a polymere substrate to relax its backbone upon and has its symbol processing unit doing something funny and yet (probably) peaceful.
Love