Wednesday, April 10, 2013

No government, no economy

Well ain't that funny.

Without a government, without a national sovereign, any economic system that wishes to be more than jungle bartering - that is to say, any economic system that wishes to use money - will inherently be a pyramid scheme, as with Bitcoin and as with gold metallic standard and as with money-as-debt and as with microchips in the skin (the last being transnational: the destruction of sovereign nations, not to mention the destruction of human dignity and freedom). Or it will inevitably become one if it does not start out as one: ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme, plutocracy.

If an economy does not want to have a national sovereign and also does not want to have a pyramid scheme, it must resort to jungle bartering. Not that that would be a bad thing. But it would not be an economy.

It is a binary situation before us, with the third option of jungle bartering.

All the inflationary and flatulent economic gibberish debates issued by insolvent schools of economic thought today comes to down to what we mean by "money".

Many people can't get past this concept that money is somehow supposed to be magically imbued with "value" if it is to have the name "money". Money in itself is primarily a representation of wealth. Nowhere along the line does it lose this being a representation, no matter how much and how gross the abuse.

Money is the measure by which goods meet with needs in the most efficient way possible. Yes, not all of that talk about how we need to bring morality back into the economy is actually working for us. There is a definite leaving point, or a descending entrance point, by which we must recognize that putting food into one's own mouth is not a moral act. What is moral is to put into effect an economy by which goods meet with needs in the most efficient, non-wasteful, non-exploitative way possible. The first way this is done is through that sterile device for the common good, called, "money".

The money is issued to the good produced. That's the way it comes into existence (or is supposed to, debt-free, but which is not done so today). That's the way it circulates afterwards. You can barter in that system too if you want. You can even use gold if you want. But down the line someone will want money for the gold or bartered item, because he can get all manner of things with money without having to barter as with a barterable item.

Money firstly removes the consumption of time that would otherwise be involved in meeting with the good that one needs. I need coffee (so says my addiction). It's a good thing my boss paid me with money and did not pay me with coconuts. Otherwise I would have to find someone who both has coffee and wants coconuts. Why would a coffee seller who happens to be a tea drinker take money for his coffee? Because then he doesn't have to find someone who both has tea and wants coffee in order to obtain the tea he drinks for breakfast. He can simply find someone who sells tea. And so on, for the tea seller who drinks milkshakes.

So, not only does money remove the consumption of time between the meeting of needs with goods; it means that money also gives one time.

Already right there, you have an easing of activity that opens up a horizon for people, all people. When people's needs are met without convolutedness, they have time for production.

Stop right there. Appreciate what kind of a gift money is, which man has devised by his God-given intelligence.

Money in its proper, original, non-abused, non-debt sense, is the republicization of transaction. The littlest transaction has some kind of commonality with a huge transaction. It means that each transaction, without being an inherently moral act, but in merely being a transaction, helps to benefit the widest amount of people. It does not mean you are being charitable with your every transaction. It is a provision made by a nation's government. This is the very definition and aim of economic thought: how transaction can be made most efficient so that, while merely remaining transaction, it benefits the common good. This is what money does, or is supposed to do, when it is not issued as debt or constrained to an artificial standard and when its quantity is controlled.

That's right. By a government.

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