kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Change economics to environment (of which economics is one part) and I'm with you...
"its only money"
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Change economics to environment (of which economics is one part) and I'm with you...
story
Gone for a Burton
zenie said:
Agreed.
I was really trying to establish to parameters of the discussion, really.
The Hunter-gather analogy doesn't work, for instance, because the value of money is its ability enable one to acquire the things that a hunter-gatherer - or anyone else - needs in order to be live.
The value of money is in what it allows one to have.
Once you have enough, or sufficient, you can start to gather extra. That applies to food and other things, or money itself.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
OK, I can do that.kyser_soze said:
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't think so. It's a different kind of suffering, granted.Blagsta said:
When the various pressures of the rich world get to me, I sit back in my warm, comfy chair feeling miserable, and the fact that I have all this comfort, that I really should have nothing to complain about in my soft existence, just makes me feel worse.
In winter, everyone is a bit miserable, so you take solace. Then spring arrives and everybody else cheers up, and you feel despair, because you should have cheered up as well and you haven't.
Backatcha Bandit
is not taking your calls
If you're really interested in the subject, I can recommend a book by Richard Manning which goes over this in quite some detail:Jografer said:Reference please.
I'm afraid I don't go with this misty eyed, back to our pastoral roots bollocks, as I would guess lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality etc etc would all be part of that heaven on earth...
& if it really was only a few hours a week, why the fuck did our ancestor's decide to chuck it all in for 12 hours a day on the farm.....
walks away, shaking his head, muttering something about hippy bullshit..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/r...ainst.020the.020graingl_book-21&index=blended
Far from being 'hippy bullshit', Manning presents quite a strong case... rather than try to paraphrase the entire book, here's a lazily c&p'ed review:
Well worth spending just over 3 quid on.
(LBJ - you'll fucking love it.
)It is only money, and Im very fortunate to have the luxury of saying that as I sit here and listen to the verve on my computor in my parents country house in the wilds of SW Ireland.
There are still things I want though: A Fiat Coupe which Im saving for, or a new clarinet for instance.
The important thing is to understand that these things do not bring happyness. We do, inside ourselves, by finding strength to let go of fears and focus on gifts and love we have.
If we hate money we repell it from ourselves subconciously. If we are totally indifferent to it we may be happy but we wont get that Fiat Coupe or pay the bills even.
Embrace everything you can and give of it freely. After all if we focus too much on holding onto stuff we wont have free hands to pick up what comes along.
I dont say that I manage to do all this stuff, lifes a fucking tight-rope. But I try. Mind you thats fucked up too.
As Yoda said: "No! Do not try! There is no try. Do, or do not. Never try." Or words to that effect anyhow.
There are still things I want though: A Fiat Coupe which Im saving for, or a new clarinet for instance.
The important thing is to understand that these things do not bring happyness. We do, inside ourselves, by finding strength to let go of fears and focus on gifts and love we have.
If we hate money we repell it from ourselves subconciously. If we are totally indifferent to it we may be happy but we wont get that Fiat Coupe or pay the bills even.
Embrace everything you can and give of it freely. After all if we focus too much on holding onto stuff we wont have free hands to pick up what comes along.
I dont say that I manage to do all this stuff, lifes a fucking tight-rope. But I try. Mind you thats fucked up too.
As Yoda said: "No! Do not try! There is no try. Do, or do not. Never try." Or words to that effect anyhow.
Backatcha Bandit
is not taking your calls
While I'm at it...
I have actually lived for some time in a society that could be described as predominantly 'Hunter / Gatherer'.
Whether the experience qualifies me to speak authoritatively on the relative benefits of such a mode of existence, I don't know. I can share a few observations, though:
In 'monetary' terms, the people there we the 'poorest' I have ever met.
In 'cultural' terms, they were amongst the 'richest'.
They were - by far - the happiest, most contented, most joyful people I've ever met.
They were also the most generous.
There was no such thing as 'homelessness', despite there being within the country an area with something near, if not the highest population density on the planet (and with virtually no buildings with more than 1 floor!)
I could go on...
OK, so they had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the World (nobody bothers naming children until after their first birthday), people often died as a result of diseases etc. that are considered 'easily curable' by 'our' standards.
If I posted a picture of the place, most here would associate it with the word 'paradise' - although curiously I wouldn't anymore.
If I had to pick just one thing that I learned from that whole experience to tell you, it would be the fundamental truth that was so eloquently observed by Alfred Sohn-Rethel:
That is to say:
If we are brought up exposed solely to our 'money' orientated 'way of thinking', we cannot even *imagine* another 'way of thinking', let alone be aware that such a thing could possibly even *exist*.
I went there to ostensibly to 'teach'. I spent the first year thinking everyone was completely mad. It took that long to learn that I was.
_
I find it curious - yet unsurprising - that there is no attempt so far on this thread to actually examine what money *is*.
Far from being the 'neutral medium of exchange' with which we facilitate the exchange of goods and services, it is a very powerful coercive tool of social control.
A cursory examination of it's systemic properties reveals this - our failure to do so ensures the continuation of our slavery.
When I read here that people equate 'money' with 'freedom' I want to cry.
As Goethe suggested; 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free'.
I have actually lived for some time in a society that could be described as predominantly 'Hunter / Gatherer'.
Whether the experience qualifies me to speak authoritatively on the relative benefits of such a mode of existence, I don't know. I can share a few observations, though:
In 'monetary' terms, the people there we the 'poorest' I have ever met.
In 'cultural' terms, they were amongst the 'richest'.
They were - by far - the happiest, most contented, most joyful people I've ever met.
They were also the most generous.
There was no such thing as 'homelessness', despite there being within the country an area with something near, if not the highest population density on the planet (and with virtually no buildings with more than 1 floor!)
I could go on...
OK, so they had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the World (nobody bothers naming children until after their first birthday), people often died as a result of diseases etc. that are considered 'easily curable' by 'our' standards.
If I posted a picture of the place, most here would associate it with the word 'paradise' - although curiously I wouldn't anymore.
If I had to pick just one thing that I learned from that whole experience to tell you, it would be the fundamental truth that was so eloquently observed by Alfred Sohn-Rethel:
That is to say:
If we are brought up exposed solely to our 'money' orientated 'way of thinking', we cannot even *imagine* another 'way of thinking', let alone be aware that such a thing could possibly even *exist*.
I went there to ostensibly to 'teach'. I spent the first year thinking everyone was completely mad. It took that long to learn that I was.
_
I find it curious - yet unsurprising - that there is no attempt so far on this thread to actually examine what money *is*.
Far from being the 'neutral medium of exchange' with which we facilitate the exchange of goods and services, it is a very powerful coercive tool of social control.
A cursory examination of it's systemic properties reveals this - our failure to do so ensures the continuation of our slavery.
When I read here that people equate 'money' with 'freedom' I want to cry.
As Goethe suggested; 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free'.
What is money?...
In its purest form it must be illusion as is so eloquently demonstrated by this link and so callously by those fucks we call banks.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
In its purest form it must be illusion as is so eloquently demonstrated by this link and so callously by those fucks we call banks.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
Backatcha Bandit
is not taking your calls
Apologies, Story. That you did - and quite eloquently, I might add.story said:
Deeplight - nice to see we're on the same page.
*Earth to Phil... Come in, Phil*
story
Gone for a Burton
Well, for instance, is it inevitable that some form of currency would emerge in any culture?
Cowrie shells, metal coins, leather discs, whatever - they all stand in for a promise of barter, they are not in themselves useful. In the end, the currency itself was imbued with value. Livestock - hardly very portable - is the only extant form of currency/wealth I can think of that has its own intrinsic use, as well as value.
It seems sensible for transhumant societies to carry cowrie shells or metal coins rather than the thing for which they stand. Does the convenience (not so heavy/bulky), freedom of choice (I don't want goats, I want horses), and investment in time (I don't need them now, I want them later) that currency allows increase its value? Perhaps any intrinsic value that currency might have is in these intangibles?
In Buchenwald and other concentration camps, bread was currency. Even though it was food, and even though the inmates were starving, they would save the bread to use for barter. It became somehow more valuable as a bartering chip - as currency - than it was as a means to stave off hunger; even stale bread that was hard to eat was valuable in this way.
Are there any cultures, aside from indigenous hunter gatherer peoples, who do not use currency? None that I know of.
It seems that the emergence of currency is inevitable once a certain type or level of culture is achieved. Does capitalism emerge as a result of currency? Or is currency an expression of emergent capitalism?
There are invisible things - time, power, position - that seem to become difficult to achieve or hang on to in modern societies. Is this a result of currency? We seem to believe that money will buy us these things. Does that suggest that they never existed or were impossible to get in the absence of currency? Of course not. So how have these things become so closely associated with currency? How recently did that happen?
So thinking of the question in the OP: "It's only money": it is "only" money in the sense that it has no intrinsic use; but if you think of it is an expression of the culture and society from which it has arisen, to deny its value it is to devalue everything - culture, emotional and societal expression etc. - from which it has sprung.
That sort of thing
Cowrie shells, metal coins, leather discs, whatever - they all stand in for a promise of barter, they are not in themselves useful. In the end, the currency itself was imbued with value. Livestock - hardly very portable - is the only extant form of currency/wealth I can think of that has its own intrinsic use, as well as value.
It seems sensible for transhumant societies to carry cowrie shells or metal coins rather than the thing for which they stand. Does the convenience (not so heavy/bulky), freedom of choice (I don't want goats, I want horses), and investment in time (I don't need them now, I want them later) that currency allows increase its value? Perhaps any intrinsic value that currency might have is in these intangibles?
In Buchenwald and other concentration camps, bread was currency. Even though it was food, and even though the inmates were starving, they would save the bread to use for barter. It became somehow more valuable as a bartering chip - as currency - than it was as a means to stave off hunger; even stale bread that was hard to eat was valuable in this way.
Are there any cultures, aside from indigenous hunter gatherer peoples, who do not use currency? None that I know of.
It seems that the emergence of currency is inevitable once a certain type or level of culture is achieved. Does capitalism emerge as a result of currency? Or is currency an expression of emergent capitalism?
There are invisible things - time, power, position - that seem to become difficult to achieve or hang on to in modern societies. Is this a result of currency? We seem to believe that money will buy us these things. Does that suggest that they never existed or were impossible to get in the absence of currency? Of course not. So how have these things become so closely associated with currency? How recently did that happen?
So thinking of the question in the OP: "It's only money": it is "only" money in the sense that it has no intrinsic use; but if you think of it is an expression of the culture and society from which it has arisen, to deny its value it is to devalue everything - culture, emotional and societal expression etc. - from which it has sprung.
That sort of thing
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
story said:Well, for instance, is it inevitable that some form of currency would emerge in any culture?
Cowrie shells, metal coins, leather discs, whatever - they all stand in for a promise of barter, they are not in themselves useful. In the end, the currency itself was imbued with value. Livestock - hardly very portable - is the only extant form of currency/wealth I can think of that has its own intrinsic use, as well as value.
It seems sensible for transhumant societies to carry cowrie shells or metal coins rather than the thing for which they stand. Does the convenience (not so heavy/bulky), freedom of choice (I don't want goats, I want horses), and investment in time (I don't need them now, I want them later) that currency allows increase its value? Perhaps any intrinsic value that currency might have is in these intangibles?
In Buchenwald and other concentration camps, bread was currency. Even though it was food, and even though the inmates were starving, they would save the bread to use for barter. It became somehow more valuable as a bartering chip - as currency - than it was as a means to stave off hunger; even stale bread that was hard to eat was valuable in this way.
Are there any cultures, aside from indigenous hunter gatherer peoples, who do not use currency? None that I know of.
It seems that the emergence of currency is inevitable once a certain type or level of culture is achieved. Does capitalism emerge as a result of currency? Or is currency an expression of emergent capitalism?
There are invisible things - time, power, position - that seem to become difficult to achieve or hang on to in modern societies. Is this a result of currency? We seem to believe that money will buy us these things. Does that suggest that they never existed or were impossible to get in the absence of currency? Of course not. So how have these things become so closely associated with currency? How recently did that happen?
So thinking of the question in the OP: "It's only money": it is "only" money in the sense that it has no intrinsic use; but if you think of it is an expression of the culture and society from which it has arisen, to deny its value it is to devalue everything - culture, emotional and societal expression etc. - from which it has sprung.
That sort of thing
Have you read much Marx?
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