What is money?

reply to post by frazzle

Are you suggesting Ben Franklin was a Marxist?

What? No, I am stating very plainly that your interpretation of what jonnywhite wrote is identical to Marx's labour theory of value.

You wrote:

Perhaps you have misconstrued what the word energy represents in this context. It is not what happens when you flip a switch and the light comes on or what the power companies produce, it refers specifically to human energy expended ~ IOW, whatever you put your own physical or mental energy into that creates something of value to yourself and others.

Marx wrote:

A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. Source

*

I guess Ben was a peasant, as well as a Marxist.

I have no idea what you are driving at. Franklin was a printer by trade – a bourgeois.

Islamic finance has worked, and would continue to work very well if not for the fractional accounting, debt based central banking cartel throwing NATO soldiers against Islamic countries to keep them in the stone age and under the heavy hand of usury.

There are Islamic financing arrangements wherever Muslims live, including the United States of America; the Islamic finance network is global. And yes, it works exceedingly well; I never said it didn't. However, the use of borrowed capital is still charged for in Islamic finance, as it must always be with any kind of finance since there is no point in lending money unless one lends it at a profit.

*

Originally posted by Astyanax
I repeat: man proposes, money disposes. If you want to make an intelligent reply to my post, you will have to chew on that statement first.

Originally posted by frazzle
There was absolutely nothing elitist about that sentence.

Thank you for the unintended compliment. Yes, keeping things up to an acceptable standard is one of the essential functions played by elites in civilized society.

So far, you have failed to address meaningfully (or even, I suspect, understand) what I have contributed to your thread. Your responses are simply sloganeering money-crank nonsense that we have all heard a thousand times before, and which anyone who has the slightest understanding of money (that is to say, of human nature) knows cannot possibly work. Instead of trying fruitlessly to refute what everybody else is telling you, why not try to learn something from this very interesting thread you have started?

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by frazzle

 

What? No, I am stating very plainly that your interpretation of what jonnywhite wrote is identical to Marx's labour theory of value.

Marx wrote:

A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. Source

As far as I know, Marx's abstract theory was never put to the test, so we cannot know if it would have functioned as he theorized. On the other hand, the experiment with a labor/measure of value that took place in the American colonies was put to the test and it was quite a success until England slapped the currency act on the Americans and reinstituted a debt based economy.

I have no idea what you are driving at. Franklin was a printer by trade – a bourgeois.

Apparently you didn't read the OP. I'm not going to repost what Franklin said to the British king, but its still there.

There are Islamic financing arrangements wherever Muslims live, including the United States of America; the Islamic finance network is global. And yes, it works exceedingly well; I never said it didn't. However, the use of borrowed capital is still charged for in Islamic finance, as it must always be with any kind of finance since there is no point in lending money unless one lends it at a profit.

There are major differences in Islamic banking and central debt banking. In the first place interest is not added to Islamic loans before the principle even leaves the bank, rather repayment is based on a precentage of production and profit over an agreed term. We should probably all do a little more investigating on that topic, but the primary thrust of Islamic banking seems to be that one may not use money to make money which adds nothing to an economy, rather such practices diminish it.

So far, you have failed to address meaningfully (or even, I suspect, understand) what I have contributed to your thread. Your responses are simply sloganeering money-crank nonsense that we have all heard a thousand times before, and which anyone who has the slightest understanding of money (that is to say, of human nature) knows cannot possibly work. Instead of trying fruitlessly to refute what everybody else is telling you, why not try to learn something from this very interesting thread you have started?

Thank you for describing the thread as interesting, however it barely breaks the surface of all there is to know about alternative currencies and economies as is indicated by the multiple links provided in the opening post, some of which lead to other links and I suspect you have not read any of them a thousand times. There are hundreds of other websites and many dozens of books not included on this thread that answer the questions much better than I ever could, but it appears that all you have done is thrown out refutations without further study on the issue. So let me be clear, this thread was meant to be an introduction to the subject only, inviting readers to investigate further if they so choose.

You said in an earlier post that Money is not value itself, obviously, because the value of money is not fixed. Yes, and you have inadvertantly put your finger on the exact problem, which is the instability and fluctuating value of the dollar due to many mistakes, such as fractional bank lending practices, Wall Street gambling on futures markets and too many deliberate acts of greed to name.

reply to post by frazzle

You said in an earlier post that Money is not value itself, obviously, because the value of money is not fixed. Yes, and you have inadvertantly put your finger on the exact problem, which is the instability and fluctuating value of the dollar due to many mistakes, such as fractional bank lending practices, Wall Street gambling on futures markets and too many deliberate acts of greed to name.

I did not 'inadvertently put my finger on the problem'. I am fully aware that people of your cast of mind think that the problem with money is that it fluctuates in value. In fact, the problem with money is that you simply do not have enough of it, and you don't know how to alter that situation. Welcome to the real world.

Whenever one sees 'fractional lending' or 'fractional interest', one knows one is dealing with a person who has swallowed the purely religious idea – religious in the sense that all the evidence says it is impossible, yet the faithful still believe – that the value of money can be fixed, usually against a gold standard, and that if only banks and bankers, particularly central bankers, could be eliminated, everything would be hunky-dory with the world economy. This is mere dogma without a shred of truth to it, as I have already explained, albeit obliquely, in my earlier posts. You still do not seem to have thought very hard about, far less made meaningful reply to, the points I have made.

You persist in believing that money is at the service of man – even if only of a fraction of mankind. As I have said many times now, that is not so; money has its own logic and dynamics, which unfold of their own accord quite independently of how individuals, communities, banks or states intend they should. The two stories you tell in your opening post are examples of precisely that, yet you are blinded to the truth by the dogma you have embraced.

You cannot control money. Nobody can – not banks, not states, not local communities or cooperatives. It is more true, if anything, to say that money controls people.

You want evidence? I give you, Sir or Madam, the history of the world. Refute that.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by frazzle

 

You said in an earlier post that Money is not value itself, obviously, because the value of money is not fixed. Yes, and you have inadvertantly put your finger on the exact problem, which is the instability and fluctuating value of the dollar due to many mistakes, such as fractional bank lending practices, Wall Street gambling on futures markets and too many deliberate acts of greed to name.

I did not 'inadvertently put my finger on the problem'. I am fully aware that people of your cast of mind think that the problem with money is that it fluctuates in value. In fact, the problem with money is that you simply do not have enough of it, and you don't know how to alter that situation. Welcome to the real world.

Whenever one sees 'fractional lending' or 'fractional interest', one knows one is dealing with a person who has swallowed the purely religious idea – religious in the sense that all the evidence says it is impossible, yet the faithful still believe – that the value of money can be fixed, usually against a gold standard, and that if only banks and bankers, particularly central bankers, could be eliminated, everything would be hunky-dory with the world economy. This is mere dogma without a shred of truth to it, as I have already explained, albeit obliquely, in my earlier posts. You still do not seem to have thought very hard about, far less made meaningful reply to, the points I have made.

You persist in believing that money is at the service of man – even if only of a fraction of mankind. As I have said many times now, that is not so; money has its own logic and dynamics, which unfold of their own accord quite independently of how individuals, communities, banks or states intend they should. The two stories you tell in your opening post are examples of precisely that, yet you are blinded to the truth by the dogma you have embraced.

You cannot control money. Nobody can – not banks, not states, not local communities or cooperatives. It is more true, if anything, to say that money controls people.

You want evidence? I give you, Sir or Madam, the history of the world. Refute that.

edit on 11/7/12 by Astyanax because: one has to be truthful.

Money has its own logic? Now that is truly whacked out religious dogma. Money is merely a tool and it can be used for good or evil, just as can a pen or a gun.

Despite the fact that your alter ego keeps starring your posts, you have yet to make any kind of logical argument for or against anything on this thread. In an earlier post you refer to people who don't have enough money and then you jump to the assumption that I do not have enough of it. You know what that say about people who assume.

Nowhere have I said money is (currently) at the service of mankind. I am saying that it SHOULD serve mankind and the stories at the beginning of this thread are proof that a sound currency CAN and DOES serve mankind ~ until criminals set out to debauch its value. THAT, sir or madam, is the history of the world.

reply to post by frazzle

Money has its own logic? Now that is truly whacked out religious dogma.

Is it whacked-out religious dogma to say that gravity has its own logic? Is it whacked-out religious dogma to say that complex numbers have their own logic?

If such comparisons seem a little abstract to you, how about population growth and decline? Humans have tried to control changes in their population throughout history, to very little effect, although many of the levers of change – abstinence (either voluntary or enforced), procreation and contraception – are in our hands.

Or if even that doesn't make it clear to you what I am driving at, what about mobile phones and the internet? How many people foresaw how they would come to be used, and how radically society would be restructured by them? How many people, even today, can control the human effects of these technologies? Certainly not their inventors, nor even the entrepreneurs who brought them to market.

Money is merely a tool and it can be used for good or evil, just as can a pen or a gun.

The point is that tools shape their users.

Despite the fact that your alter ego keeps starring your posts, you have yet to make any kind of logical argument for or against anything on this thread.

All right; let me state my case as plainly as I can. It is this: money is essentially a means to the fulfilment of desire. That is its most salient and powerful attribute. Because of it, money functions as a distorting amplifier of human character and behaviour. That is how it gets its way, and why humans cannot control it.

Simple, really. But in the world of shoulds and oughts such considerations are never recognized.

I am saying that it SHOULD serve mankind and the stories at the beginning of this thread are proof that a sound currency CAN and DOES serve mankind ~ until criminals set out to debauch its value. THAT, sir or madam, is the history of the world.

Precisely – and that, as I said earlier, is my evidence. The people you call criminals are merely human beings pursuing their own interests. You're just sore because their interests conflict with yours, and because they – who understand money, as you do not – are naturally winning the contest.

reply to post by Astyanax

Is it whacked-out religious dogma to say that gravity has its own logic? Is it whacked-out religious dogma to say that complex numbers have their own logic?

Gravity is a law, whether you see the logic of it or not.

Or if even that doesn't make it clear to you what I am driving at, what about mobile phones and the internet? How many people foresaw how they would come to be used, and how radically society would be restructured by them? How many people, even today, can control the human effects of these technologies? Certainly not their inventors, nor even the entrepreneurs who brought them to market.

What the hell do cell phones have to do with money ~ well other than it costs money to make one and it costs money to own one. The form that money takes is optional.

The point is that tools shape their users.

People are shaped by their pens and guns? How so? You seem to have vacated the world of logic.

All right; let me state my case as plainly as I can. It is this: money is essentially a means to the fulfilment of desire. That is its most salient and powerful attribute. Because of it, money functions as a distorting amplifier of human character and behaviour. That is how it gets its way, and why humans cannot control it.

Simple, really. But in the world of shoulds and oughts such considerations are never recognized.

Money is simply a mediator between what is wanted and what is produced, nothing more and nothing less. But when grasping individuals, such as those behind the Libor scandal, manipulate the value of the money, the value of everything that is produced is also debauched, thereby debauching the behavior of the people who use them. As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head back.

The people you call criminals are merely human beings pursuing their own interests. You're just sore because their interests conflict with yours, and because they – who understand money, as you do not – are naturally winning the contest.

So you would find no difference between a mass murderer and an innocent bystander who witnesses the mayhem while wandering down the street minding his own business?

Sore. What a pitiful emasculated word. Let me give you over to someone who understood money and criminals and was mighty "sore" about what the financial criminals had done to our money.

Congressman Louis T. McFadden served as Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency from 1920 thru 1931. In 1932 stated on the House floor:

“Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation’s debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.

This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Fed and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it”

www.afn.org...

That's what they did to this country in less than 20 years of operation. So hold onto your hat and watch what all they can accomplish in the next 20.

reply to post by frazzle

This (doubtless to your relief) will probably be my last post on this thread.

What the hell do cell phones have to do with money ~ well other than it costs money to make one and it costs money to own one.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? What mobile phones have to do with money, as I have already made quite clear, is that the people who invented mobile phones and the people who market them had no idea of how the world would end up using them, nor how their use would change society. Futurologists have a term for things like that; they call them 'disruptive technologies'. Money is the ultimate disruptive technology.

People are shaped by their pens and guns? How so? You seem to have vacated the world of logic.

You don't see how writing and guns have shaped societies and the people who live in them? Seriously? Then it is not I but you who have vacated the world, and not just the world of logic!

Money is simply a mediator between what is wanted and what is produced, nothing more and nothing less.

No, that is simply what you want it to be. Money is far, far more complex and fickle than you think.

But when grasping individuals... manipulate the value of the money, the value of everything that is produced is also debauched, thereby debauching the behavior of the people who use them. As the saying goes, the fish rots from the head back.

Suppose you are forced to consume heroin every day. Sooner or later, you will become addicted to it. You cannot function without it, and your desperate need for the stuff alters your behaviour. Soon you find yourself begging, whoring yourself, cheating others, stealing, even killing for it.

That is what money does to people. It is, both physically and psychologically, the most addictive drug there is. And it alters people's behaviour just as any drug does – only more so, because it is so frighteningly potent.

So you would find no difference between a mass murderer and an innocent bystander who witnesses the mayhem while wandering down the street minding his own business?

People who lend money for profit are not mass murderers. They may finance mass murderers, but they also finance law and order, the criminal justice system and any number of charities.

But never mind.

Clearly you have a direction in which you want this thread to go. You want to talk about evil bankers and poor innocent downtrodden borrowers, and how if we could just reform the financial system Heaven would descend upon the Earth and the children of Adam would return to Eden. Well, good luck with that.

I, on the other hand, came to this thread in order to discuss its ostensible topic: what is money? I see now that you have no real interest in discussing it, nor any real insight into what it is. All you have is a hobby-horse. You have driven off all the other contributors to the thread by arguing with them, and now you have done the same to me.

Good luck with your programme – perhaps you will find others who share your obsession and will help you take it forward. I'm out of here.

reply to post by Astyanax


Actually I’ve enjoyed the conversation despite your superior attitude and illogical thinking. But all things end, so in closing I will say this:

It doesn’t even matter what the inventor of cell phones thought about how his invention would alter society, although one has to assume he did know exactly how well it would be accepted in society ~ for convenience. Prescience and a good mind for business.

I don’t know how to make it any clearer that its people, not objects that change society. A gun is a useless object until someone picks it up and pulls the trigger. A Pen is a useless object until someone picks it up and writes words on paper. A hammer is a useless object until someone picks it up and builds something with it or pounds something into oblivion.

Money is also a useless object, just a meme, until someone borrows it into existence or spends it into circulation. Or prints it. But try putting a cell phone into a cell phone bank and expecting it to accrue more phones or more minutes. Ain’t gonna happen. The same is true with guns or pens or hammers. There are no such banks.

But you can put money into a money bank and it will gain interest so you can buy all the other things you may want or need. So as I said, money is the mediator, the tool needed for creating, buying and selling anything else that may be of value to you.

As for disruptive technologies, that could include almost anything ever manufactured or produced, but money is only disruptive when individuals use it to disrupt and there again, its about disruptive people, not objects. But for power hungry individuals, gaining more money isn’t really the primary goal anyway, it’s the control they gain by the use of money to control other individual’s access to phones, hammers, guns, pens and even food. This is where the complexity you speak of enters the picture, but it is not fickle at all. Its deliberate.

Its interesting that you would inject illicit drugs into the conversation, but again you have placed the onus on the addict rather than the one who used deliberate force to start the process of addiction. In that same regard, the population has been forced to use the dollar in all of its everyday commerce and everyone has become addicted to it by those who used force (congress and a president who later admitted that he had betrayed his country in the process) to eliminate all possible currency alternatives and to eliminate equal access to it. So actually you have made my point that the central control of money by private for-profit bankers is frighteningly potent.

You say I “clearly have a direction in which I want the thread to go”. That’s pretty funny, did you suppose I should create a thread that went the direction you wanted it to go? All I can say to that is that nobody’s stopping you from creating your own thread about Adam and Eve and heaven and illicit drugs and sticking to those points. If other poster’s object to your direction, its up to you to keep the conversation on point and if that drives posters away, oh well. Threads come and go.

Tens of millions of people all around the world already share my obsession as is demonstrated by the links at the beginning of the thread. And here’s another to show how many alternative money “programmes” already exist in the United States today. All of these people are doing what they can to turn money back to its original purpose ~ as an equal opportunity mediator in trade and commerce.

greensborocurrencyproject.blogspot.com...#!/2011/03/replacing-scarcity-with-trust.html

reply to post by CosmicEgg


You certainly must be acquainted with the structure of a Resource-Based Economy, given what I perceive from your comments. If not, then it would be of utmost importance you do so. There is no time to waste.

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by SapiensAdAequilibrium


There is no good reason to consider any economic system because we cannot own anything. We are all born onto this planet equally. No one comes in with greater rights to it than anyone else. Those are all false and only exist because we believe it is so, for some utterly inexplicable reason.

Forget money. Eliminate it from your consciousness.

Money is a metaphysical contrivance of humans, with no direct physical referent in the natural world.

The only true currency is RESOURCES - both in the form of physical, natural resources, as well as human ingenuity, creativity, and knowledge.

We need to move towards a Resource Based Economy. Monetary economics, in any form, need to be relegated to the annals of history.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by SapiensAdAequilibrium

 

There is no good reason to consider any economic system because we cannot own anything. We are all born onto this planet equally. No one comes in with greater rights to it than anyone else. Those are all false and only exist because we believe it is so, for some utterly inexplicable reason. Forget money. Eliminate it from your consciousness.

They exist because people sit around believing, instead of solving and acting. Maybe to enlighten some people, you should tells us your magical fable about how money doesn't exist. It exists because we made it exist. To deny it, is ignorance, which you sir are full of. You can go on and on about how nothing is real, nothing can be owned. I bet I own this house, and I bet you won't step inside like you equally own it. How can you say we're all born equally? Deformed babies are not treated equal, though they should. How about a baby born blind. Both of us were born with greater rights because got have the right to see.

Some people are naturally hard working and some people are lazy. You dare say the two are equal? Nope, a hard working person earns things. lazy people expect to be given. I won't support a world like that. Work for what you have. Needs are for everyone. Wants are earned by sweat. If you think we are all equal and deserve the same things, then you are the lazy one. I dont deserve anything, I will earn mine thank you

Asking what money is is like a bindfolded man having a hold of an elephants tail and asking what it is or trying to understand the whole cridder.

Money is both pratical and magical.....aids in freedom as well as oppresion.