Money is something that baffles me. Not the fact that it is a medium of exchange, but the fact that it can fluctuate in value, that it can earn interest, that it can exist in a virutal form and yet the use of these invisible numbers can shape the world. I also wonder about why money attracts more money, and why the rich/poor divide grows more sharply by the day.
The universe provides everything we need in terms of money, resources, and food - not to mention beauty, wonder and excitement. By rights, with the level of technology we currently possess, there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone to starve or for anyone to have to work long hours and yet still barely make ends meet. There is also no reason for people to accumulate vast mountains of wealth - beyond a certain point it turns absurd, a ridiculous measure of a person. If you have money, then it is easy to make more money. You can just leave it in a high-interest savings account for a start.
At this point in my life money is important to me - not in and of itself, but as a tool by which I can live and eventually become free. Money is used as a motivator, more than anything. There is this world view that says that people won’t work, won’t produce, won’t be valuable, unless you offer them a carrot (money) and a stick (lack of money). Yet from my perspective it seems as though it is the financially free that produce the most good and are the most creative.
I’ve seen The Secret. I’ve read about the Law of Abundance. I understand that there is enough of everything we need to go around - but with one flaw. Money. Money creates lack. Or, maybe, the concept of profit creates lack. As long as huge, multinational corporations - faceless unweildy beasts - try and raise their profit margin by cutting costs there will be lack in the world.
By most people’s standards I am incredibly wealthy. I have a home, clean running water, easy access to a huge variety of food. If I get sick there are well-trained doctors to help advise me and provide me with medicine. If someone commits a crime against me there is a system in place to try and provide me with protection and justice. Sure, all of these systems could be improved, but that’s the nice thing about life. It’s never so good that it can’t get better.
Yet I simply cannot get my head around why and how there is still poverty in the world. Clean water, basic education, and staple foods are not luxury items. There has to be a base level of human rights. We are a co-operative species. We evolved to use teamwork, to use our brains, to share and to trade. Not to exploit and to starve.
There has to be a workable alternative to capitalism.
