I have always been interested in currency. I have extensive collections of coins and notes from ancient Rome to the present. But what is money? I know the standard definitions of what it is: a means of exchange, a measure of value, a store of wealth. You can't even say that it is only a piece of paper anymore because less than 20% of financial transactions in the U.S. are conducted in cash. You can't even see it anymore. It is bits stored on a computer. I work as a janitor at a major university. In making small talk with the students I ask them their major, then what they want to do when they graduate. I get the same answer over and over and over. "Well, what I'd like to do is........., but I can't make any money doing that, so I guess I'm going to have to ....... The jobs they would like to do are important jobs that desperately need doing, but don't pay any money. Why not? I believe that over 90% of human activity is devoted to producing goods and services that we don't need while jobs so important that the future of the human race is at stake go undone. Why? It's all about the money. Money is the source of power of the 1%. But it has the potential to be their great weakness.
I once saw a cartoon of an alien landing on earth to explore the planet. He sees millions of idle workers. He sees the planet turning into one huge toxic waste dump. He scratches his head. He sends in his report. No intelligent life on this planet. If there is no money to be made, it doesn't get done. 5000 children die every day because their parents have no money to buy food yet governments pay their farmers not to grow food. The trouble with the economy is that there are no jobs. Think about how absurd that statement is. There are jobs as far as the eye can see. Important jobs. But they are not getting done because there is no money to be made doing them. The earth is being turned into dollars. Services that we used to do for ourselves and for each other for free have been taken from us and then sold back to us for money. The capitalist free market economy is all about making money. But capitalism only works if the economy constantly expands. What happens when there is no more oil to drill for, no more trees to cut down, no more ore to mine, no more fish to catch? We devote our entire lives to making money. Money has isolated us from each other and destroyed our sense of community. If we have enough money then we don't need each other. Money is security. Or is it? Money can be anything but only has value if we all agree that it has value. But if those agreements break down then money becomes worthless. When the world economy collapses, what will happen to the currency? What good will billions of dollars be when dollars aren't worth anything? When that happens money will no longer be power. What will become valuable is our relationships with each other. No matter what happens, we will face it together and we will be OK. After all, there is work to be done and we have the people to do it. There's your economy right there. There is enough for everyone. No one needs to go hungry or homeless. A new kind of money will emerge. It's sole purpose will be to coordinate human activity, not to allow a privileged few to accumulate all the wealth. Money must become our servant, not our master. A totally different kind of economy will emerge. An economy where we only consume what we need and leave the rest for future generations. Where we try to waste as little as possible. Money after all is an artificial thing. It is needed only because a barter economy is too awkward. We must change how we think about money. It is the key to all our problems. The role money plays in society is not written in stone. Things do not have to be the way they are. Free market capitalism has run it's course. It has served its' purpose but its' day is done. It is grinding to a halt. The efforts of both parties to restart it will not be successful. There is no more room for growth. The free market economy is based on the assumption that people will always act in their own self interest. Is that actually true? Or is it other way around. We act in our own self interest only because free market capitalism forces us to think that way. What if we just gave hungry children something to eat because we have more than we need. When you do something for someone or give them something asking nothing in return, how does that make you feel? If you are on the receiving end, how does that make you feel? Do you feel gratitude? Does it make you want to do something in return. This is the basis for a gift economy. Will it work? There are those that say that people are too selfish. Is that true? I really don't know. I only know that the things the students really want to do are not jobs that make a lot of money. They are jobs that make the world a better place. But there is no money in a making the world a better place. A new type of economy must bring everything into balance. Money must no longer be the determining factor in human activity. It should make our lives easier, not harder. A new type of economy will emerge simply because there is no alternative. We will be forced into changing our ways or we will die. It's that simple. We all know in our heart of hearts that we can do better. The world economy will collapse of its' own weight and we will be forced to build a new one. This time we will work for the benefit of the human race and of Mother Earth. We have no choice.
As part of my involvement with the occupy movement I have been researching alternate and complimentary currencies along with these questions. How does our money come into existence? Who controls our currency? What really goes on at the Federal Reserve? Why is our money backed by debt? What is fractional reserve banking? But that is another story.
This book has changed the way I think about money. Sacred Economics