Hello all,
I've been away, and am trying to catch up on various threads.
On the money thread, I wonder if the lack of consensus may in large part be
due to the multi-faceted nature of "money" itself. Of course we're all aware
of the dangers of reification of symbols (fallacy of mis-placed
concrete-ness, and all that) ; nevertheless, it is all too easy to think of
something like money as 'one thing', when its true nature varies
moment-by-moment, and from place to place. Capital isn't the same as wages,
money owed isn't the same as money owned (but with a -ve sign in front), a
'petrodollar' isn't the same as a US dollar, and so on. Money doesn't
absolutely represent anything at all, on a fixed, one-to-one basis. Nor is
it amenable to a strong central 'fixed control' system ; in fact, it seems
to very democratic in nature.
So, money must be one of the most sophisticated symbol-systems we have ever
invented, and perhaps has earned its status as the "new religion".
One might also pause to ponder on how easy it is for us to pontificate and
discuss these things, because of the sort of technology which has
developed - at least in part - because of this efficient system. In this,
perhaps we share something with the ancient Greeks, who could quite happily
espouse things like 'democracy' - which of course didn't include slaves (or
women), in part because of the availability of the required (in their view)
leisure time in which to do this abstract 'pointless' (in the immediate or
short term) thinking, because of the existence of those very slaves (and
women).
Therefore, consiedrations of 'the love of money' are actually quite complex,
and might break down in to many, smaller areas. For instance, I know many
people who say they love money, but in fact can't wait to get rid of it!
This is obviously quite different to the sort of love of money which
involves hoarding it, for instance. Many 'big earners' regard money not as
an end in itself, but as a way of 'keeping score'.And many people who claim
to know nothing about money actually mean that they don't know how to save
it, but do know how to spend it.
Another thing: an awful lot of the conflict-and-competition which is thought
to be about money is actually about quite a different thing - 'territory'.
Basically, (and I know this is a gross generalisation) most people want
slightly more than 'their share'; the people who are most indignant about
someone else having too much are often actually the people who are most
envious, rather than the people who are most interested in 'fair play'.
Overall, I suppose I'm suggesting that, just as it has been said that "man
created God in his own image", this might actually be the case with money;
we've created a complex symbol which accurately reflects our stage of
development as a society and a species. It would seem a little unfair to
blame the tool, when it is the tool inventor, and the user that are really
to blame.
One last thought: it does seem to me that many peoples best efforts are not
actually devoted to getting money at all, and further I am often struck by
how much work, ingenuity, time, and even lives, have been spent quite
independantly of the monetary system, whether in pastimes, hobbies,
expeditions, efforts to glorify one's God, etc., etc., - and I suppose
this list comes under that category of 'amateur' (in the best sense of the
word) pursuit.
regards,
ppl
----- Original Message -----
From: <Ascmjk@aol.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: 22 April 2000 01:57
Subject: Re: MD your stash of cash
> In a message dated 4/21/00 10:07:37 AM Central Daylight Time,
> Trickster@postmark.net writes:
>
> > Jon, I don't know about anyone else, but for me - the thread seems a
> > bit different this time - the discusion is focusing more on the "love"
> > of money (or greed) than the mere existence of money.
>
>
> I'll shut up about money now. In closing I would note that once again this
> topic has failed to achieve any kind of consensus; I think this reflects
> America's various ambiguous opinions about money, and why it's often
> difficult to get things done. (In fairness I should add that failure to
> achieve consensus is not uncommon in our group.)
>
> >
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:42 BST