Money is Everything?

[whynaut]

Niniva

I'll call on absurdity here. Money can maintain itself without people? Maybe structurally, but the VALUE placed on money is a human thing.

First of all, welcome to the discussion. As you may have read in earlier posts, the general consensus agrees with your statement that money is a man-made concept [take a look at Arson Hiroha's post about money on a desert island]. However, it is a common occurrence for an idea to turn back on the people who invented it. I could go into detail concerning Baudrillard's idea of objects dominating over subjects through the use of sign value, but I feel it would detract from the central discussion of this thread. Needless to say, I believe that people may have originally created money as a tool, but now money uses people as tools.

If I had 1 million dollars I could lord over an army of servants to take care of my every whim. You take that money away from me and give the 1 million to my neighbor; now my neighbor lords over the servants and they no longer obey me. Now from this example, does it appear that the servants ever obeyed me? Or did they obey the money? It hardily matters if I was good to them, or forceful, or charismatic; they did not obey for any reasons that had to do my power as a person. They obeyed the power of the money.

Niniva

Money is an object without a consciousness. An object alone cannot be evil as it has no free will and cannot act on it's own...

I will agree with you there. I tried really hard to try and not call money evil. Even though just the concept of money curbs freedom, and that irks me.

Niniva

As I explained above humanity is what gives money it's value in the first place, but the reason we have money is because it is natural to want to trade something of value for something of value. Mankind has done it since the beginning of time and if we did not call it money we would call it something else. "services" "clams" "rocks" "Trade" Whatever. A system of monetary value has evolved from people, but the reason it is there is because it is the easiest and safest way to get what you want or desire without having to give up anything.

I feel I must disagree with idea that money is a natural part of humanity. Besides the fact that animals have no form of currency, there are many ways to get things of value without trading anything for it. In a previous post I showed as example:

whynaut

But once again, this is not true because not only can we steal items bypassing money all together; we can also deny experience gained through money and look towards new experience without money.

As you suggested, humans might do this because it is the safest way, but is it really? If I am bigger and stronger than the person I steal things from it is perfectly safer for me to steal it than work for it. The only other penalty for stealing is the law, but that is only because the law itself has been dupped into thinking that money is important.  

[Arson Hiroha]

I suppose since two of us have taken up this side of the arguement, we can alternate. I'll do the courtesy of letting him take it up when he replies first, and if he likes he can do the same when I do. Anyway, back to the discussion.

Quote:

First of all, welcome to the discussion. As you may have read in earlier posts, the general consensus agrees with your statement that money is a man-made concept [take a look at Arson Hiroha's post about money on a desert island]. However, it is a common occurrence for an idea to turn back on the people who invented it. I could go into detail concerning Baudrillard's idea of objects dominating over subjects through the use of sign value, but I feel it would detract from the central discussion of this thread. Needless to say, I believe that people may have originally created money as a tool, but now money uses people as tools.

If I had 1 million dollars I could lord over an army of servants to take care of my every whim. You take that money away from me and give the 1 million to my neighbor; now my neighbor lords over the servants and they no longer obey me. Now from this example, does it appear that the servants ever obeyed me? Or did they obey the money? It hardily matters if I was good to them, or forceful, or charismatic; they did not obey for any reasons that had to do my power as a person. They obeyed the power of the money.

I see what point Niniva's making here, and I think I'll elaborate on it. Although we make our actions based on money, money does not have consciousness, and it cannot reason. It is only something we see to hold value; it defines what we do, but it does not choose what we do. It simply determines.

As for your metaphor, let's look at money as a tool. A very important one. Though your metaphor is true, it also works for using tools. For example, if I use a hammer to drive a nail, by this metaphor the nail isn't being acted upon by me, it's being acted upon by the hammer I'm using. The money itself cannot do anything, someone has to use it to make it act upon something. Thus, it is a tool. Does this sound correct?

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I will agree with you there. I tried really hard to try and not call money evil. Even though just the concept of money curbs freedom, and that irks me.

Thus, this admission further reinforces my arguement. If it cannot act by its own reason, but only if someone else forces to act, does it not follow that it is a tool?

That isn't to say that the necessity of this tool is a good thing. Perhaps its evil isn't in that it's used, but simply how much we use it and what we use it for? The same could be true of even the hammer. The hammer itself is never evil- to even call it so seems absurd, correct? However, when we do this we think of its function as hammering nails. Suppose I were to use it as a weapon and whack someone with it. Does it then follow that hammers are evil?

Quote:

I feel I must disagree with idea that money is a natural part of humanity. Besides the fact that animals have no form of currency, there are many ways to get things of value without trading anything for it. In a previous post I showed as example:

whynaut

But once again, this is not true because not only can we steal items bypassing money all together; we can also deny experience gained through money and look towards new experience without money.

As you suggested, humans might do this because it is the safest way, but is it really? If I am bigger and stronger than the person I steal things from it is perfectly safer for me to steal it than work for it. The only other penalty for stealing is the law, but that is only because the law itself has been dupped into thinking that money is important.

I agree with you, money is not a natural part of humanity. It's only as natural to us as any other tool to is to us, like the hammer for example. As with the hammer and hammering nails, the need for money is not natural, but the need to trade with people in larger groups is most definately natural to humanity; we are by all means a group species, as I'm sure you can agree. Thus we use this tool to achieve our other ends.

Also, be careful with the examples you use. The one you gave implies that money is simply a benevolent deceiver, and prevents us from having unrest among our cities with constant theft (as in, everybody does it). Let's use a different example, charity, or mutual gift giving. Money also convinces us to only give what we will get in return. Thus, this raises another question. Should we rely on money so much, and should we always receive exactly as much as we give? Or can money also be used to deceive, so we can still steal, only within the system? Though first, we need to focus on our previous discussion. Do you agree that money is tool, and if not, what is it? If so, feel free to take on the other questions.