Hi all
New member de-lurking to throw my comments into the
root of all evil debate. I agree with everything that
has been said so far but would like to offer a few
more points.
As I see it the problem with money is that it is being
mistaken for an objective basis for measuring value.
Of course this is nonsense because some very valuable
things are abundant, and therefore cheap (air, water,
mothers), and some very useless things are rare and
therefore expensive (diamonds, special edition barbies
and CEOs).
Of course this is completely the reverse of what
Pirsig teaches and I doubt any Pirsigians subscribe to
that, but it’s a powerful force in our society. The
examples are everywhere but I’ll give you this one
because it is so grotesque and yet comes from such a
powerful source, Lawrence Summers, now Secretary of
the Treasury of the US Government
http://www.corpwatch.org/globalization/bretton/lsummers.html
He basically argues
a. It’s more moral to kill poor people because their
economic value, ie earnings are less.
b. Africa should accept pollution from the USA because
the USA has too much.
c. Rich people have greater entitlement to cleaner air
because people in developing countries die from worse
things than air pollution anyway.
Is money the root of all evil? Well it’s a false god,
and the simple-minded (read US Treasury) can and are
being fooled by it. I would say the notion of
objectivity is the real evil. In Summer’s case he
actually seems to think he’s being rational. No,
actually, he IS being rational. He’s using an
“objective” tool, ie money, to make logical
judgements. It’s actually far worse than simple greed
because from an “objective” point of view you can’t
even explain what’s wrong. You just have this sick
feeling that something really horrible is going on.
It’s insidiousness lies in the fact that APPEARS to be
neutral and therefore we take it at face value. I
think economics should be compulsory in all schools if
only to get rid of the idea that monetary values
represent some kind of underlying worth. They don’t.
They represent (at best) supply and demand and (at
worst) the politics of oppression.
The stock market is supposed to be a reflection of the
economic environment. And it used to be. But it isn’t
being used in the way it was designed. The primary
reason for investment is now to gain value from
appreciating shares. This is NOT what it was supposed
to do. Investors were supposed to put money into
industry and take returns in the form of dividends.
Money would flow towards the most successful companies
because they paid the biggest dividends. It was a
sensible system. And now?? It’s gone completely wacko.
It’s one giant international casino where people’s
livelihoods, and lives, are decided by not much more
than hype. Unfortunately for the most part, the people
who actually understand that are the same people who
benefit from it.
The American public has somehow been sold on the idea
that money, the free market, the stock market are
somehow “neutral” and “natural” rather than simply the
political/economic tools that they actually are. But
it isn’t natural for anyone to SELL their self, or to
own fresh air, or the right to good health, because
these things simply cannot have prices. Marx knew
that. The Greeks knew that. And I do suspect the
American Indians know that too. I’m not arguing for
the abolition of money, but we do need to pay a little
more attention to basic economic theory so that we can
understand how and why the economy is the way it is.
It hasn’t just happened and it isn’t inevitable.
Jack
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