Money, Ruler of All

Today I was thinking about why every nation on Earth uses some sort of barter/currency system. I speculate that we use money to trade certain services (labor) for certain goods (reward). I also speculate that if everybody were to love each other knowing they'd be loved back, or whatever version of that phrase you want to apply (as there are many), we would not need money. We would be able to trade services/goods and be happy knowing that we would eventually be paid back. But there has been an inherent fear in most people, which is that we will not be paid back, and our actions will have been for naught. This is where religion comes in. It reassures people that through your good deeds, even if a human does not pay you back, karma, God, Godesses or whomever you believe in will repay you eventually. If we believe in humanity, then what need is there for religion?

So then I started thinking that there has to be some other reason for currency being here, because without currency this would obviously be a much better planet. It has to do with the fear of not being paid back. What money does is control that fear of not receiving payment by guaranteeing that you will be paid back, although it comes at a cost. Whoever controls the most of this fear-controlling element also controls the population that relies on this element. For example, Americans depend on the dollar, therefore even though there are MUCH MUCH less wealthy elite people in America than less wealthy people, the wealthy people will always rule because they control the external reality of others. Every input people use, media, literature, medicine, education, etc. depends on capital to thrive, so if a group of people control this capital, everything that people see is indeed controlled to produce a certain outcome, usually in order to keep these wealthy people in power.

Since the demolition of money is almost impossible to trigger, considering everyone's interests, personal philosophies, and addiction to this corrupt system, I propose that for know we just shift the money into government hands. Instead of letting people outside the government, who only have interest in keeping themselves in power, we should give the government all funds and set up a democracy outside of government. This is how it would work:

Governments would still use the democratic system to vote people into office. We the people would have control of this, or at least as much control as we now have . But this wouldn't matter. The governments would be restricted by a New Constitution set forth by members of every state, county, province, and area. This document would keep a balance as to how much money the government prints according to size of population, and a new organization could be set forth to regulate money flow between governments and external properties, making sure that no person or group of people was receiving or sending outside of the budget set forth by the nation's people. This would mean that although it would be capitalist, no organization or group of organizations could possess the mass of wealth because distribution would be limited by the government and cash flow would be monitored and regulated by an open source, not corporations.

But what would be really different is that while keeping the three branches of government, we would introduce a "fourth branch" that differs completely in that it has no say in government processes. It would be there strictly to represent the people's interests and monitor all processes taken by the government. These people would be volunteers who are paid handsomely, but are not allowed under any circumstance to own, possess, or interfere with corporation affairs. After analyzing government processes, the information gathered would be sent around the country as a survey, either electronically or through some other means, to conduct a poll on the support of the processes, with a thorough explanation of each process.

I'm basically shooting at thin air here, but I really want to take the power from money that we have given it. I know the flames are gonna come, but is someone willing to help give input to a new idea that would eradicate concentration of power through wealth? Thoughts?

Money is a commodity that can be traded and subjected to price fluctuations. In the ancient times, this form of currency take the form of precious metals like gold, silver, and copper. In the modern time, it is a piece of paper. The value of this paper is only as good as the power of the State and the Government. Paper currency has to have the backing of a strong State. As soon as you take the State and Government out of the currency equation, the money won't worth much. Even the Euro is only as good as the France and Germany being the engine driving the European economy. You think the Euro is still strong if all European nations like the Greece....?

reply to post by ChiForce


Well, I'm not necessarily suggesting taking the State out of the equation. The State as it is right now (at least in America) is not in control of the money. The money is control by other nations such as Great Britain through corporations which are outside of the government. I'm suggesting the government be in control of the money.

As for your question, are you referencing a global currency similar to multiple nations? If so, that would work under a world government, but that's the only way really.

reply to post by prepared4truth

So then I started thinking that there has to be some other reason for currency being here, because without currency this would obviously be a much better planet.

Could you explain how and why it would be better? I'm sorry, but it isn't obvious to me. Actually, I think the world would be a much worse place without money.

If money didn't exist, how would people obtain the things they needed? Would we have to produce everything for ourselves? That would take us back to the early Stone Age, a rather uncomfortable time when life was famously 'nasty, brutish and short.' Or should we expect people simply to give us the things we need? It seems pretty obvious that that won't work--why should I spend so much time and energy raising or making something and then just give it away to you? What do I gain by it? It won't even gain me your friendship, in the long run!

Or do you propose we adopt the barter system? It is very inefficient--imagine how many bales of cotton I'd have to cart downtown to pay for my new MacBook--and also rather unfair, because if money didn't exist it would be almost impossible to value a barter transaction correctly. What would you value it in?

Money is like God. If it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it.

So we did.

reply to post by ChiForce

The value of this paper is only as good as the power of the State and the Government. Paper currency has to have the backing of a strong State. As soon as you take the State and Government out of the currency equation, the money won't worth much.

Fortunately, you are wrong.

The value of money--whether made of paper, gold or cowrie shells--lies not in the backing of a State but in an agreement between those who use it that it is worth such-and-such an amount. Did State backing stabilize the value of the Zimbabwean pound or the Indonesian rupiah?

The original banknotes were actually notes of hand between individuals. I write a note to my storekeeper, saying 'Kindly give ChiForce a hundred pounds of coffee beans from my store. Signed, Astyanax.' You, my storekeeper and I all agree the note is worth a hundred pounds of coffee beans. However, the transaction is restricted to the two of us--you and me. But if, instead, I were to write, 'Kindly give the bearer a hundred pounds of coffee beans from my store,' you could take that note and give it to someone else in order to pay off a debt you owed him, or in exchange for some other goods. The note could pass from hand to hand many times before it reached my storekeeper and was exchanged for coffee beans.

Of course, the note was usually for a hundred pounds in gold or silver, not coffee beans. But this was just a holdover from times when hardly anybody could read. Instead of a note of hand, the promise to pay was made in fixed amounts of some compact, long-lasting, portable and easily protected substance--gold or silver, for example. A gold piece was a promise to pay what the gold was worth in coffee beans (or whatever) in exchange for it.

But the value of the gold varied from place to place, which was inconvenient. The arrogation of the right to issue currency by States was driven by the need to eliminate this kind of inconvenience. If the king said half an ounce of gold was worth so much, then you had to pay that amount for it or the king's men would want to know the reason why. Of course, this monopoly on currency issuance also helped concentrate power in the hands of the king.

But it never really worked--either way. First, despite whatever the king said half an ounce of gold was worth, that half-ounce would still buy different amounts of coffee, land, silk underclothing or influence in different parts of the kingdom according to the law of supply and demand. Rulers who failed to understand that their power over the currency was not absolute soon found their power over the rest of their realm compromised, too--this was, in the end, the error that undid that most absolute of absolute monarchs, Louis XIV of France.

Second, such State monopolies have never been total. Around the same time rulers began insisting on them, merchants began inventing notes-of-hand, letters of credit, cheques, debentures and all the rest of the paraphenalia of banking. All these subverted the State monopoly by taking on some of the features of currency. That is the reason why they were invented in the first place, or one of the reasons at least.

Today, we have come to a point where governments must struggle to retain any control of the currency at all. In most free, democratic countries, the only lever they have left is control of the money supply through manipulating central-bank interest rates and issuing debt (Treasury bills and bonds). Neither of these are very effective instruments, as the response of rich-world governments to the recent financial crisis demonstrates. Despotic States such as China exert a bit more control by restricting trade in their currencies and holding large reserves of other people's money. But these, too, are pretty blunt instruments and come with disadvantages of their own. Unless you have mountains of foreign reserves, as China does, you're liable to end up ruining your balance of payments or triggering hyperinflation.

Money is one of the highest expressions of democracy and human liberty. Like information, it wants to be free, and it diminishes when you hoard it. We would all be the poorer, and not just in pecuniary terms, if it were to somehow disappear. Long live money!

reply to post by prepared4truth


Hi, prepared,

S & F, you are so right.

Money exists as a way to control people. People who manipulate money make obscene amounts of money doing so. Banks push virtual money around the world and make virtual millions at the push of a button. So do money traders worldwide. For money, read power.

But the ridiculous thing is that money can be invented by people, and money can equally be removed by those people. Money is a concept, not a reality.

Show me one country crying poor about welfare, who then turns around and magically gets billions of dollars for war - every country.

Money is not just the root of all evil, it equals all evil.

The world was fully equipped to support everyone upon the world through trading and the barter system.

Certain people seized power, and that was it.

This is why some people are obscenely rich and some people are starving, and because of the imbalance the planet is suffering and will continue to suffer until we have balance.

But because a lot of people care nothing for others or for the planet, I am afraid that will not happen.

Love and Money, as different as chalk and cheese.

One rules every aspect of our life and the other rules the economic worth of our labour.

With love, one needs not worry about hunger or poverty, for if one truly loves, one will be loved truly back in return, and in that mutually honest relationship, each will support each other through good and bad times. There will always be someone who loves us in this world of 6 billion, failing which, no parent would abandon their own blood for long.

Only those who loves not truly will be left high and dry, for being dishonest with their own obligations of true love.

Money is the portable exchange of our efforts and labour, either in service or production. There will always be a form of exchange for such so long for we have no capability to self sufficient. And in such exchanges when excess resources or time are traded, it becomes additional funds to help build ourselves and our societies, from which progress comes.

Without money, life will still have go on as long as we mortals are not self sufficient or willing to commit to hermitage, which no human should be forced to.

Thus, in reply to OP, we cannot do without money, with is only a form of exchange for our labour and resources, nor can we do without love if we are to live this life meaningfully. What is required is not the abolition of love and money, but more farsighted management of these both honestly will it benefit humanity, instead of the all out pursuit of it in the name of greed and unchecked power over others.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Seeker,

You missed the point. OP was saying love OR money, not both.

And as I pointed out money equals hate and war, not love.

If the monetary system of the US collapsed, then the next step would be for the people who own gold to try to establish this as the currency of record. Since most people don't own caches of gold, this would quickly fail - unless it was backed up by physical force, which may or may not be successful. After all, there are just so many bullets, even in this country, and the shooters have to sleep sometime.

In the end, it would be relationships that would ensure survival. Whatever is deemed valuable would be vulnerable to the scarcity of what is deemed necessary - how much gold would you pay for a liter of water in a desert? Probably, if pressed, all the gold you have. Suddenly water is the currency, and gold is just shiny stuff that is too heavy to have to carry around. If safety and shelter is the necessity, then how much is that water worth? Depends on how immediate the need for safety and shelter is. Water won't rescue you or keep you from freezing. Suddenly water isn't currency anymore.

Symbiotic relationships will always be valuable. The power of two men is always more than the power of one man (all other aspects of these men being equal, of course). The closer the alliance, the more powerful and dependable the value of that union. With such a union, the potential for acquisition of whatever the immediate currency is becomes exponentially enhanced. Add more devoted members to this alliance, and the survival rate for all skyrockets. Suddenly the symbiotic relationship supplants all currency, and makes any owner of valuable commodities either a target or someone eager to join the alliance for his/her own survival. The alliance ultimately becomes the ruling unit of value, and eventually there develops a need to stabilize the alliance with the establishment of rights and responsibilities. Government.

Then, back comes the individual with the desire to influence this government through bit offers of agreed-upon value that separates that sidebar exchange from the alliance as a whole for the enrichment of the pair who've allied against the alliance, and you're back to where we are today.

Basically, alliance trumps all, and always has. Money is just how such alliances are sought and agreed to.

reply to post by prepared4truth

You made me think of this song. I do apologise if it's too far off-topic.

Alright, this is how the picture seems in my mind.

Money rules everything around us (dollar dollar bills ya'll! ) So if us humans are allowed to control the quantity of money produced, there are effectively humans who control everything around us and to a certain extent, they control us.

If this was replaced by a mindset of love others as you love yourself, there would be no need for money because "not getting anything in return for your time and energy" would not be a concern/fear. Even if you didn't get anything, who cares? You didn't spend your time and energy for a return, you spent it because you loved to do it.

Now I know this type of mindset will be hard to develop in a majority of people because of reasons outlines in my first post (dependency on return, control of power, etc.) so I'm suggesting an alternative that doesn't rely on debt or precious metals or any conceivable object/idea. These things limit the ability of our economies to flourish in the long-run (unless it is recognized globally, which it never is).

The abolition of money would be ideal if we were all less selfish, but since we're not, money's power should just be restrained. I refuse to worship their All-Seeing Eye!

reply to post by prepared4truth

If this was replaced by a mindset of love others as you love yourself, there would be no need for money because "not getting anything in return for your time and energy" would not be a concern/fear.

But is this possible?

You seem like a person who values love. Most of us do. One of the reasons we do is that it is so rare--and not only rare, but dearly bought. There is always a price for love. We may think a mother's love at least is given freely and unconditionally, but we forget that such love is actually an advance-payment on the thing that causes love to exist in the first place: the prospect of genetic immortality.

In addition to being famously many-splendoured, love is also expensive. It costs us something to love, because all love involves some kind of sacrifice. Why should we make sacrifices for someone who means nothing to us? The fact is, we don't. We save our love for people who are worth loving--those who care for us, who provide us with life-support and progeny, those whom we make the instruments of our future happiness and success. We have no love to spare for people who mean nothing to us--love is too costly a commodity for that.

Besides, love was created by nature for her own purposes, and it is she, not you and I, who dishes it out. That is why no-one can love by act of will; we must wait for nature to turn that switch on for us.

Even if you didn't get anything, who cares? You didn't spend your time and energy for a return, you spent it because you loved to do it.

If you make something because you love to do it, you usually end up loving--which means valuing--the thing you made. You're not going to give it away free to a stranger.

Nothing and nobody spends time and energy without expectation of a return.

Now I know this type of mindset will be hard to develop in a majority of people because of reasons outlines in my first post (dependency on return, control of power, etc.) so I'm suggesting an alternative that doesn't rely on debt or precious metals or any conceivable object/idea.

What justifies the alternative? If Jesus Christ couldn't achieve this enviable state of affairs, given presumptive divinity, omnipotence even, and a project duration of two thousand-odd years (so far), what could?

The abolition of money would be ideal if we were all less selfish, but since we're not, money's power should just be restrained. I refuse to worship their All-Seeing Eye!

Enough Socratic questions; here, something more direct is called for.

Your faith in the perfectibility of humankind does you credit; it shows that you are well-disposed towards your fellows and yearn for a better world. But you are making a fatal mistake, my friend: you see evil in money, when the evil lies not in money, but in men.

Money has no power for good or ill except that which we confer upon it. If you want to restrain the power of money, you have to apply restraints upon people. Restraints upon money are merely restraints upon its free use and circulation--in other words, they are restraints upon human action.

That is why socialism and communism, which seek to achieve equality and happiness for all by restricting capital use, ownership and circulation, always end up creating a straitjacket of oppressive rules and laws that have to be imposed by violence. That is what happens when you try to restrain the power of money: you end up taking people's freedom, and ultimately their lives, away from them.

If us humans are allowed to control the quantity of money produced, there are effectively humans who control everything around us and to a certain extent, they control us.

Precisely. That is one reason why 'restraining the power of money' is such a mistake. The other reason, of course, is that it never works in the long run.

Money is freedom, not slavery. What oppresses people is not money, but the lack of it.

If you have all the money in the world, and no one who cares about you. What's to prevent someone from just killing you off and sharing that money with the folks you hired to protect you?

The answer...............................nothing.

Money means nothing. If things continue as they are going, money will just become the bullseye on the back of your head. Just watch.

Originally posted by NorEaster
Money means nothing. If things continue as they are going, money will just become the bullseye on the back of your head. Just watch.

The trick is to not flaunt your hard-earned wealth. Dress normal, don't buy that Rolex, don't buy a flashy car, don't live in a mansion and use all that lovely moolah to do all those things that make life enjoyable.

On getting rid of money, you'd be left with barter and you'd be back to those prehistoric days when you ran the risk of having your goat run off and get eaten by a wolf before you can trade him for that dog you always wanted.

Very inefficient.

Originally posted by momoney

Originally posted by NorEaster
Money means nothing. If things continue as they are going, money will just become the bullseye on the back of your head. Just watch.

The trick is to not flaunt your hard-earned wealth. Dress normal, don't buy that Rolex, don't buy a flashy car, don't live in a mansion and use all that lovely moolah to do all those things that make life enjoyable.

On getting rid of money, you'd be left with barter and you'd be back to those prehistoric days when you ran the risk of having your goat run off and get eaten by a wolf before you can trade him for that dog you always wanted.

Very inefficient.

The real trick is to build a community of people who care about you and share in your prosperity. Nothing protects you and what you earn as profoundly and faithfully as other folks who see their own security tied to your security. Symbiosis is what they call it, and the human being is genetically predisposed to seek this as the most stable means of security and protection. The Western version of civilization is the only version that sees this as weakness, and (to be honest) it's the American culture that has raised "rugged independence" to the level of virtue.

Of course, the wealthy promote this in our culture to maintain power over the seething masses of people that they fear, but it's an ideology that will - at some point - prove itself to be an intentional construct that's been sold to generations of Americans who have never had any idea what its purpose has always been.

The nuclear family is the smallest possible unit of community that can reasonably be marketed to rational people. Any insistence on less, and you're messing with the procreative biological imperative. These last couple years have been a battle in this society on what is an acceptable level of community, and the official word (as promoted by politicians and media marketing firms) is that anything larger than the close extended family (grandparents and struggling siblings, but even then, there's cultural uneasiness with these numbers) is edging into Socialism or worse. That said, the top-down autocratic "community" of the corporate "team" is celebrated, although this is not a true community, since membership can be immediately revoked and the revocation is absolute and legally (as well as socially) enforced with no questions asked. Still, the corporate team has become the de facto community structure for most Americans, and provides everything, including healthcare security in most instances.

Meanwhile, even the neighborhood coalition is seen as dangerous and anti-American by most members of this society. Organized labor is really pushing it for most folks, and government by the people...? That's Communism or Socialism, or (recently minted) Nazism...which is pretty absurd, since Nazism had nothing to do with people grouping together for protection against the powerfully malevolent people and entities that feed on the weak and isolated.

In America, money has its power, but that power is allowed by the people who could have all the power if they simply realized that they've always possessed it if they'd just open their hands and let it drop into them. The rich and powerful spend billions each year on social programming, and they do this because it works and if they didn't they'd lose their advantage over all the folks who hover over them every second of terrified lives. They spend that money because they're smart enough to know that they have to.

If money ruled, then these rich folks wouldn't throw it at us to protect themselves from us. Having it would be enough. It's not and these people know that it's not.

Originally posted by NorEaster
The real trick is to build a community of people who care about you and share in your prosperity. Nothing protects you and what you earn as profoundly and faithfully as other folks who see their own security tied to your security. Symbiosis is what they call it.

Actually, they call it shareholder capitalism. Symbiosis is cooperation between different species.

The human being is genetically predisposed to seek this (symbiosis) as the most stable means of security and protection.

We are genetically programmed to live in groups; but within those groups, we both cooperate and compete with one another.

The Western version of civilization is the only version that sees this as weakness, and (to be honest) it's the American culture that has raised "rugged independence" to the level of virtue.

It would be more correct to say that the balance struck between the demands of the individual and those of society varies from culture to culture. Both sides of the balance have their advantages and disadvantages.

Of course, the wealthy promote this in our culture to maintain power over the seething masses of people that they fear.

In my culture, the wealthy and powerful promote collectivism and 'duty to society' as a way of maintaining their ascendancy. In truth, it is impossible to rid society of hierarchies and elites--no religious, political or philosophical system has ever succeeded in this.

It's an ideology that will - at some point - prove itself to be an intentional construct that's been sold to generations of Americans who have never had any idea what its purpose has always been.

Rather, it's an ideology that arises naturally from the natural instinct for looking after Number One.

The nuclear family is the smallest possible unit of community that can reasonably be marketed to rational people. Any insistence on less, and you're messing with the procreative biological imperative.

That hasn't stopped people, from the Albigensians to the Communists, messing with it, though.

If money ruled, then these rich folks wouldn't throw it at us to protect themselves from us. Having it would be enough.

I agree. Money is merely one means to power--individually or collectively held. It's the power that counts.

reply to post by Astyanax

Originally posted by Astyanax

Originally posted by NorEaster
The real trick is to build a community of people who care about you and share in your prosperity. Nothing protects you and what you earn as profoundly and faithfully as other folks who see their own security tied to your security. Symbiosis is what they call it.

Symbiosis is cooperation between different species.

It does mean that, but not only that. Not a big deal.

World English Dictionary
symbiosis (ˌsɪmbɪˈəʊsɪs, ˌsɪmbaɪˈəʊsɪs)

— n
1. a close and usually obligatory association of two organisms of different species that live together, often to their mutual benefit
2. a similar relationship between interdependent persons or groups

We seem to agree, for the most part, on the rest, although I see a rejection of the present configuration coming up, where community will be the source of power, as opposed to arbitrary descriptions of what constitutes wealth. I'm not sure if you see this present system as sustainable.

Originally posted by NorEaster
We seem to agree, for the most part, on the rest... I'm not sure if you see this present system as sustainable.

I'm not sure we do agree. I believe that commerce is one of the great binders of society, because it aligns the separate interests of disparate individuals and groups. Even when conflicts of interest arise between them, commercially interested parties normally try to settle them peaceably, because they do not wish to incur the damages and costs of outright hostilties. Commerce is precisely what works the 'real trick' you referred to earlier:

Originally posted by NorEaster
The real trick is to build a community of people who care about you and share in your prosperity. Nothing protects you and what you earn as profoundly and faithfully as other folks who see their own security tied to your security.

Nothing achieves this more readily, among people of varying interests, than commerce.

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'present system'. If you mean the world economy, its present form is due to the existence of nation-states; it's no coincidence that modern banking and the modern nation-state arose at more or less the same period in history. Obstructions to the smooth flow of trade and the efficiency of markets are created by impediments to the free flow of goods, persons and information across external (and sometimes, in the case of places like China and India, internal) borders. If you really want to change the world economy, you must seek to change the behaviour of nation-states, or to abolish them.

If on the other hand you want to abolish money, you will have to abolish commerce. The only way to do this is to increase, rather than decrease, the power of states. ATS members tending to be for the most part rugged individualists, I don't think that proposal will find great favour among us.

I say get rid of money entirely. It can be done, but only if we get the overunity devices out of Black Ops an into the public domain. Because money is an accounting of energy expended, once we have free energy, the need for money will dissipate.

For more on the abundance paradigm, please visit these treads:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
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And read my book, linked in my sig below - it's free.

Originally posted by prepared4truth
I really want to take the power from money that we have given it. I know the flames are gonna come, but is someone willing to help give input to a new idea that would eradicate concentration of power through wealth? Thoughts?

Well if the bilderburger group can be used as an example if someone would invent an 'evil meter' app then we could just shun them from society and they would have fewer and fewer people to prey on.