[PLUG-TALK] What is money? (was Fair Use, etc.)

Steve Jorgensen jorgens at coho.net
Fri Mar 29 11:06:36 UTC 2002


On Thursday, March 28, 2002 5:07 PM, Dylan Reinhardt 
[SMTP:dylan at dylanreinhardt.com] wrote:
...
> In point of fact, money is far less real now than when Carneige put pen
> to paper... and we're all vastly better off for it.

I take special exception to such value statements.  It may be true that the 
transition was inevitable and part of the natural course of events, but 
better?  That is a cosmic question.

> One could look at the credit card transaction clearing process (as I 
have)
> and conclude that money has simply become an elaborate way of keeping 
score.
> When you charge that NIC at Fry's, ~$30 simply springs into existence. In
> a very real way, that money simply didn't exist until the moment you 
spent
> it.  The process of creating wealth may look scary if you're used to 
thinking
> of wealth as a scarce commodity (like a coin or a sheaf of wheat). But it
> isn't scary: it's our greatest opportunity for growth.
>
> By moving beyond a token-based economy, we have removed artificial 
barriers
> to the creation and distribution of wealth.  The US turned its back on 
the
> gold standard and moved exclusively to fiat currency.  That process took
> a long time and became finalized only in the last 100 years.  Not 
coincidentally,
> we have also seen the US grow from an largely agrarian plutocracy to a 
far
> more egalitarian society that also happens to be the world's largest 
industrial
> power.  If that's what we get for moving to fake money, I'm glad we did
> it.

This seems to be like many things that benefit the early adopters - like 
oxygen breathing organisms.  Is it a better ecosystem?  Well, it's 
certainly different, and the first on board certainly have an advantage.

> When the supply of metals drove our economy, depressions were more severe
> and oddball events like the discovery of caches of gold or silver had the
> potential to disrupt economic activity at all levels.  It's not so much
> the case that we were manipulated or tricked into relinquishing gold; 
rather,
> it's more accurate to say that we simply outgrew it.  Token-based 
economies
> treat each person as a mouth--yet one more drain on a fixed supply of 
resources.
>  Currency allows for the possibility that a person is not just a mouth,
> but a set of hands.  Why should the measure of value in an economy be 
tied
> to anything other than the sum of what people produce?

This implies that the value of tokens is truly a less biased measure of 
true value.  I'm not sure this is any more true than the idea that the 
current price of a corporation's stock represents its long-term viability.

> No, I'm not saying that everything is perfectly optimized yet, but you'd
> be hard pressed to show that average people today enjoy less freedom or
> political clout than average people of the 18th century.  Perhaps the 
middle
> class of today enjoy fewer perks than the plutocrats of yore... but 
that's
> a whole different ball of wax, isn't it?

I agree with that paragraph except for the word "yet".  Systems of biology 
and of social interaction are in constant flux.  There is no final state of 
"perfect optimization"; we are simply in a state of constant adaptation to 
current trends, and the actions we take to adapt (along with many external 
factors) continually change the environment to which we must adapt in ways 
we could never predict.  Evolution has no forward vector, it is simply an 
endless, chaotic process.  There is no guarantee that our tiny, transient 
improvement in freedom and clout will persist - or on what scale of 
space/time.

Whether the stock market is on the rise or decline is based on the chosen 
geographical scope and starting and ending times of measure.  Progress or 
regress of personal freedom and political clout are much the same, though 
more difficult to quantify.





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