Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees, But Apples Do
Money, it’s a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. — Pink Floyd
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.
Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
- Upton Sinclair
Where does money come from? Silly question you might be saying, don’t you know it comes from the bank, or the ATM, or if you’re getting really technical The Federal Reserve? Ok, I hear you, but I want to dig a little deeper. As I see it, money, like all human created ‘things’ comes from a thought that turns into a belief, that then elicits a collective behavior.
So here is my very non-expert attempt at sharing where the idea of money as we currently think of it came from. Here goes!
In the olden days, people held their wealth, typically silver or gold, in a box under their mattress at home. And then, perhaps by nothing more than happenstance, a group of individuals created what was called a safe house (now it’s known as a bank) where people could deposit their silver and gold to keep it safe. Safe from what or whom I’m not sure, maybe the ‘bad’ guys, as there are always some of them about. Once the citizens left their precious metal with these fellas, the safe house would give them a note of credit (a piece of paper that was worth X amount) that said the depositor had X amount of gold or silver on deposit at the safe house. Anytime the depositor needed money to purchase/exchange goods or services they would go to the safe house and get a note of credit (a piece of paper) and the fellas at the safe house would adjust their credit accordingly. Eventually, the citizens/depositors stopped coming back to get their actual silver and gold and they just started exchanging the credit notes (the paper) in the marketplace for the goods and services they required to live and conduct business. Over time these credit notes became the first form of paper currency. So, the guys running these safe houses, smart fellas that they were (or hucksters depending on your point of view), realized that since no one was coming back for their actual silver and gold, came to the conclusion that they could just write notes of credit and not even loan out the gold or silver (that wasn’t theirs to begin with). And low and behold, everyone just went along with it, the depositors just carried on, never questioning the arraignment. Right up to this very day….
So, with that background, what is it called when someone loans out money that they don’t have and charges interest for it? That would be called fraud. Holy shit! And all this time I thought our money system was sensible, honest, based in integrity and carefully thought out by really smart men with big brains and bigger hearts (just kidding, I didn’t think that). The olden days story I described above is now called fractional reserve banking/lending, and as the gold standard was done away with in 1971 there isn’t even any ‘precious metal’ backing the value of the paper and ink we use to buy and sell stuff.
So in truth, it’s all a charade. We are living in the land of make-believe money. That’s one of the reasons the government, through the Federal Reserve, just keep raising the debt ceiling and printing evermore money. It isn’t really real in any sense, we just believe that the ink on paper, or the little piece of plastic we carry around in our wallet has value. That is the power of belief.
Alright, now that we’ve got that fable out on the table, I’ll carry on in a more philosophical mode. Which won’t be any more learned as I’m not a trained philosopher either, but just for fun I’m going for it anyway. Money is a construct, an agreement. And like all constructs are inclined to do, it turned into a belief that the two-legged mammalian masses the world over participate in.
And our participation is required, for very obvious reasons, as money is the only way to get the goods and services that we need to live. Essentially, we’ve created a game, based on a lie, that dictates our very survival be dependent upon the procurement of this man-made thing we call money.
And most of us earn our dead presidents through working a job. Typically, a job that we don’t like doing, bullshit jobs as David Graeber coined them. And of course, much to our displeasure, the government takes a significant portion of that hard-earned money in taxes to fund whatever programs they wish. But that is a subject for another time.
This whole money magic thing also leads to a differentiation in class, which at this point has grown larger than ever before, with the upper 10% holding 85% of the world’s wealth. And global debt is nearing 300 trillion, now if that doesn’t tell you what a shell-game our money system is I don’t know what will.
And just to be clear, I do not think our construct called money is good or bad, it simply is what it is. I am alive at this time and this is how the game is being played and I am beyond grateful to live as a first world citizen, which, relatively speaking, grants me so much more access to the adventure called life. I also recognize that this means I consume far more that my share of resources and that this arraignment is out of balance with the rest of humanity. So I try my best to live a life that is honorable given this strange dynamic I was born into. Some days I feel I’m doing ok, others not so much. And when we collectively decide to tell a different story about money, we will, I just hope it doesn’t involve central bank digital currency (decentralized digital currencies that the government/central banks have no say over are a-ok with me).
In our current cultural design, we tend to value money above everything else. It’s misguided to be sure, but not at all mysterious when one of the foundational cultural beliefs is that we see ourselves as separate, skin-encased egos running around on a planet that we have dominion over. And the belief in scarcity, that there isn’t enough to go around, has taken over as well. Of course, there is more than enough money for every human being (we’re just making it up out of thin air at this point), we’ve just chosen to believe and act otherwise.
Humans are such a curious creature, all the other animals we share this planet with live in harmony with the earth knowing to do otherwise would be untenable and plain silly. Clearly, they possess a wisdom that we ‘civilized’ two-legged’s have yet to integrate. In our defense we are the youngest of Mother Earth’s species, so we do have the most to learn.
Humans love to tell stories. We are myth makers. Myths helps us organize our thoughts and behaviors and live our lives. And while myths are not truths (and many things we consider to be true are not), they still embody meaning and hold value and give us a framework. As such, our money story is a meaningful myth, but it is not a Truth.
A Truth would be that sunshine and water are required for life to exist and thrive. Truths are inescapable. There is nothing, no idea, no invention, no force that man can apply that can alter a Truth. As such, money is worthless in the world of Truth. But, boy-oh-by is it valuable in the world of make-believe!
What actually holds value is not a piece of paper or a chunk of gold. Real value is held in a seed, a stream, a cow, a tree, a loving community. As some smarty pants once said, ‘You can’t eat money.’ But a hug, a warm fire, a home-cooked meal, fresh spring water, healthy soil, a glorious sunrise, now those are truly priceless.
The silver lining in all of this is that eventually this whole monetary story we’ve created will crumble to pieces because it is based on a lie. I doubt we will write a new story before this one implodes and causes a great deal more suffering in doing so. But on the other side of this chapter in the human story I like to think we will make a different choice when we bring to life our next medium of exchange, one that is grounded in love, joy, compassion and abundance for all.
These amazing writers and their books helped me expand my awareness of the subject of money, debt, scarcity and our beliefs about these things.
Debt: The First Five Thousand Years & Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
Killing The Host by Michael Hudson
Sacred Economics & The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein
The Cancer Stage of Capitalism by James McMurtry
The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul — Bob Dylan
