Ramblings of Simon

“It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet.” (excerpt from Network (1976))

Isn’t that a wonderful quote?

I mean it just completely sums up the state of the world today. That we (humans yes I am bringing humanity to acocunt) have created this …. thing! called economy. Then lo and behold, it’s out of our control! Now how could this have happened? But, wait a second, we should look closer and find that it isn’t completely out of our control. No, nothing that governs our lives and influences our decisions can ever be out of our control. This is a dangerous road to go down, but alas it is already one that many capitalist societies have proceeded to take (completely unawares of course).

I had an argument a few years ago with my sister over the importance of money. I think this was the early stages of my understanding that all was not quite right in the world. I had quite simply said “I do not need money to survive.” Naturally, she found that statement to be utterly ridiculous and proceeded to argue case-in-point that money is necessary for food, water and ergo our basic functions as a living human being. This shocked me, to say the least and I should have developed on my point back then and not leave it as just a generalization. She probably thought I was declaring I am going to live as a homeless person eating scraps out of dustbins. But, what I really meant was that I had understood and corrected my attitude to this thing called “money”. I do not need money to survive. Of course I understand that in the nature of this capitalist society we live in the system of currency is a required path to adhere to in order to have a basic level of living. But, I do not need money, I do not covet money, I do not cling to money and I certainly take care to not attach myself to money. It is simply just a shift in attitude towards recognising that currency is just a system of social governance created by a few men in order to control and surpress the ambitions of the wider community. It is in no way some a priori “norm” that we must blindly accept.

I am to this day completely amazed at the lack of understanding of the so-called “sharemarket”. There seems to be this image of it circulating the media to which the impression derived is always one of confusion and ambiguity. This naturally leads to a complete absence of enthusiasm to try and understand it in basic reasonable terms. Money is and always has been power. It is a non-physical manifestation of power (in regards to physical violence userping control, money does this non-violently). It is therefore important to note that the system of currency is just another form of governance which usually operates in conjunction with the “government” of the country it is operating in. For example, in the United States of America, their Federal Reserve Bank (which is a private operation, none of the board members are voted in, nominated etc) creates money and then loans it to the US government with interest. The government is essentially indebted to the Federal Reserve Bank.

“In summary, all money is debt. And all debt, that’s expressed in dollars, is money. To understand that, is to understand much of what is wrong in our economy. All debt, that’s expressed in dollars, is money.” (Rodger Malcolm Mitchell 2003)

Thus is the control of a debt-based economy, but it can change!

I would like to note that there has never been a Democracy in the fullest sense of the word. Don’t try and cite the Ancient Athenian Demokratia, simply because its directivness was not fully developed. Slaves, non-Athenian citizens (people moved to Athens, living there but not considered “citizen”) and women were unable to vote. This left all male citizens over the age of 18 to participate, around about just one quarter of the population. Also modern representative democracy? Firstly it doesn’t oblige everyone to vote, it’s not about forcing people to vote or not merely making people accept their responsibility. Indifference of good action is a huge negative force. Also, two teirs of the government are quite lacking in “representativeness”. The presidency is one person weilding immense powers of veto, and their party’s legislative powers. They can also nominte supreme-court judges which is another teir of accountability. So the only real spread of representativness in the US democracy is the senate. But of course, with only 100 members versus the millions of US citizens, I fail to see basic representation occuring.

Enough for today, my brain is tired =)