MONEY! This is a topic that evokes a wide variety of thoughts and emotions. This site will contain a lot of information and discussion about money as time goes by. There is a lot to know and understand about it. A survey shows that most people are not very informed about money. There are many books available about it ranging from history to the future, and despite the immediacy of and the profound influence of money in the lives of the people, the vast majority of the people have invested little time in its study. We know what it looks like, in its many forms, and we know what we can do with it, but this is not enough. Something that has become the overwhelming driving force of the world warrants more. The people would help themselves greatly by taking the time to study the literature available about money. The information found there is indispensable, but there are some things about money that seem to be missing from the literature, vital things.
A fundamental fact about money that demands understanding seems obvious, but is mostly overlooked is the fact that money is what we use to access the products of society, and regardless of the form, money is a means to limit your access to the products of society. If there were no limits to your access, there would be no reason to have money at all. If you think this sounds like everything would be free in such a case, you are simply making a mistake, an understandable one, but still a profound mistake.
“Free,” like “freedom,“is something that has little or no meaning when analyzed deeply. There is no such thing as “free,” nor, as has already been written about on this site, “freedom.” These are just words that represent no physical object and as mental abstracts have only relative meaning within certain contexts. Nothing is all that is free. No object of human production is truly free since it must be “paid for” with time and energy/effort. The air you breathe in comes at the cost of time and effort inhaling. When the universe is considered, devoid of life, everything in it is a product of time and energy, and, therefore, not free. This train of thought has no end. The products of society that we currently buy with some form of money are certainly never free. They all require time and effort to produce. So, even if there were no limit to your access to the products, nothing would be free. The amount of time and energy required to produce the products and to gain unlimited access would be the cost, but money would have no place. You invest time and effort; in return you get access to all the products of society. You will not be given anything. You will have to purchase what you get by contributing to society. What makes this so desirable is the fact that your pay for your effort is everything you want as long as you live. That is pretty good pay, don’t you think?
Yes, your money will disappear. You will have to give up money entirely. There will be no money and there will be no need for money. There will be no savings, no stock market or stock, no banks, no financial institutions, no artificial value, and there will be virtually no need for lawyers. All these things exist only because we use money to conduct the operations of our society. Of course, such a system serves some, and very well.
In terms of everything that is produced in the USA, including services, the financial industry (a name it does not deserve) comprises nearly half. Things that are being done in the management and manipulation of money have become a huge portion of the total work people do. It also pays very well. In fact, it appears that the financial jobs are among the top paying in the country.
Banking is something that we all see. But do you realize that every penny that goes into the banking system is a needless expense for society. It is like paying someone to follow you around holding your money and taking care of your payments, but much worse. It is simply an unnecessary expense, and it is an expense that has taken the top tier in the pay scale. Can you see that if everyone worked in the financial sector there would be nothing to eat? Can you see that the more we spend dealing with the onerous burden of money the poorer we become? It is imperative that society use its time and effort wisely. Our work must help us as much as it possibly can, and the cost of money is too high and totally unnecessary.
Nothing we need and want requires money. We have just become so inured to it that we don’t understand what is happening. If you want to build a house or a factory, you can’t build it out of money. You build it out of tangible building materials. Money doesn’t fertilize crops. It doesn’t fix your leaky pipes. When you need building materials, go get them. In a society that pays you unlimited access to the products of society as compensation for your work, that is all you have to do; just go get the stuff you need. It seems insane to first have to convince someone that you are worthy of the money required to get the stuff you need. How did this happen? Open minded study easily answers that question, if you can get to that condition. It is not easy, perhaps even unlikely. Try it after reading this article. You may find it more likely.
There is a lot to fathom about money and how it has transformed the very essence of life in society. Consider crime. Money is the motive nearly every time. Show a hungry animal food and them put it out of reach. You will see the animal behave in ways similar to the way people behave after they become aware of what is available in the world that they are unable to obtain. Food is a prime example even amongst humans. Just look at the starvation statistics. The food is out there, but many cannot gain access to it; they don’t have the money. Who can be confused now about the frequency of crime? It is a natural occurrence in a society that limits access to it products.
It has already been suggested that there is not enough for unlimited access for everyone. This is an old response and it has no substance. It comes from the psychology created by the system that has dominated life on Earth as long as history is available. This system cannot abide abundance. This system requires for its very existence shortage, scarcity, and deprivation. We have been subjected to this so long we have unconsciously accepted it as a natural condition of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The waste that goes on in the world today is essential to this inhumane inane system.
Here is the next fundamental fact about money that beats you down every day all the time and still goes unnoticed. Somehow, at some point in time, it became accepted by the people that their time and effort does not deserve as much as that of another. You get paid more or less than someone else. The people have accepted the judgments that value their contributions to society at different levels. These value judgments and their enforcement have become such that the most essential work of society are the least valued. The people who work to build and maintain everything are granted the least access to the products of the society they build, while those who contribute things that we could easily do without are granted the most access; movie stars, high end athletes, and those who deal in money and laws, though the list is longer still. Only a very few, percentage wise, have unlimited access and, guess what, those few have virtually unlimited access to you as well.
If you and I get stranded on a deserted tropical island and I quickly gather all the coconuts and put them where you cannot get them, I can get you to do things for me that you might not otherwise be willing to do in exchange for coconuts. I would have access to you. The hungrier you become the greater my power over you becomes. My behavior in that case would certainly be subject to criticism, but such things are going on every day all over the world while the people idly accept it. You see it all around you, but you may be unaware of it.
Society is overflowing with products and services. Production is a staggering abundance. Even food has become a commodity that is bought and sold, rather than something personally grown, hunted, or gathered. It is a product of society and to get access to it money must be obtained. Again, the person with the money has power over you. If you want something besides food, the same situation exists. In the world today, your desires for things other than food are being created by some of the greatest human effort ever done, which is another topic, but you will see what I mean by considering advertising, marketing, and invention, the last of which creates desires that previously did not exist, like laptop computers. Then there is medical care.
Medical care has become big business. You can get your heart replaced. Well, you can get it replaced if you have the money; otherwise you are likely to just perish. Medical services are not provided to those who have no money. Sure there are charities and some medical service provided to those who have no money, but people are suffering and dying all over the world, even in the USA, because they don’t have enough money to get available medical help. Now, how does this compare to the coconut story above? You might do many things for someone to relieve your hunger, but when you are in the grips of excruciating pain, or your body is badly broken, you are likely to be even more motivated. What a wonderful way to make money! Just refuse to grant access to a product of society known as “medical care” unless money is provided. In a system that bases price on the strength of demand, how could you ask for a better means to set prices high? “Does it hurt bad? We can fix it for the right price.” It sounds very much like the story of coconuts. All this is going on today, and worse, while the least amount of notice and effort reveals that medical care as we have it today is only because so many have contributed to society so long.
The cost of education is not just books and tuition. What university exists solely as an island in society? They all use the roads and every other system that society provides. Without the vast amounts of time and effort supplied by the people, there would be no hospital or medical equipment, and no university. People would not be able to devote their time to the study necessary to become medical professionals. No doctor acquired the requisite knowledge to be a doctor without vast help from society. What would a person eat while spending the necessary time in study if there were no people making food available? The more one goes to school, the more one owes society. Ah, but that is backwards. The more one goes to school the more one deserves more money. This current attitude is devoid of reason, and absolutely oozing the worst form of discrimination.
Somehow you have accepted that you are not worth as much as someone else. That is the cold hard fact of the matter. You have accepted this lie, this delusion. If this is not your attitude, why then do you accept the limited access you have to the products of society? Even the highest paid doctors are getting less than some. Even they have accepted that they are worth less than someone else, if not consciously then by behavior. We have, nearly every one of us, accepted the delusion that some are worth more than others. The proof is in your pay, your profit, your returns. While you work away, even contentedly, you accept that you are not going to get full access to the products of society when there is no physical organic reason for it. It is discrimination.
You are being judged. Your value is being determined. The quality of your life is being set upon you through the instrument of money. You contribute to society and your contribution is compensated with some amount of money, which is, again, simply your access to the products of society. You are granted some level of access, but limited access, as represented by your money. Your value is being set for you.
You live on a planet that has had humans working incredibly hard on it for centuries. Humans have been very busy. The amount of work that has been done is beyond comprehension. We see remnants from thousands of years ago in the form of pyramids and such of the work that has been going on continuously for all these thousands of years. Everyone alive has inherited the products of the work done by the ancestors. In the USA there are few roads left to build. Lakes have been created. The list goes on and on. Surely you can understand this. A lot has already been done. We have inherited a lot of stuff, and the new born even more. Yet the work must go on. We must be ever productive, more and more all the time. It gets harder and harder to do enough work to satisfy our survival needs. Many perish because they cannot keep up the pace, or they cannot get back into the pace after the system has let them fall out of sync. Where does it all go? When is it enough?
In the USA, and the world at large for the most part, the people are required to work all their lives to provide for themselves. You must have a job and work at it to get money to buy the things you want and need, because you are not going to get access to the products of society unless you have money. There is retirement, sure there is. For most of you it is after you are so old and worn out that you don’t even have long left to live, and your retirement is an austerity demonstration. The exceptions to this are too few to make the situation acceptable. The exceptions, of course, are the wealthy, and in truth they only have it a little better than the rest of the people. In fact, there are ample reasons to claim that they do not have it any better, but worse. They only have access to the products of society and to the people. They don’t have greater access to peace, happiness, fulfillment, or any of the products that humans can create in a better world. The wealthy also have the burden of responsibility for the prevention of the fulfillment of Life on Earth.
When I get all the coconuts and prevent you from gaining access to them on the desert island, I am holding you down, back, and out. Money is no different. If I get all the money and prevent you from accessing it, I hold you down in much the same way. One source stated that corporations in the USA are sitting on nearly two trillion dollars, the exact number being unnecessary, and the the exact form being equally unnecessary. This number is above and beyond what they call “illiquid assets,” like buildings, real estate, machinery, and such. It also does not include the inherited work already done by humans. Those corporations use the roads, the utilities, and everything else. They hold enough money to eliminate hunger here, to provide medical care to those without access, and so much more. But they have no intention of any such actions. They hold their money while they claim they need more confidence that any use they apply the money to will result in even more money coming back to them, a return. They are held in high esteem. They are successful. They are seen as paradigms of the hope we all have. There is no hint, other than from this writer that they are hording the coconuts.
There is only so much money. If money is a “store of value,” as they put it, it must represent tangible products or services. People who have wealth are keeping you from getting better access to the products of society and they are using you to do their bidding, which is all the essential work and the work of increasing and protecting their wealth. They know that people desire better access to the products of society, so they must be ever vigilant against the people. You may have noticed the law enforcement and military expense in today’s world. If you think they are there to protect you, consider the nuclear bomb. The wealthy have plenty of protection against the nuclear threat. Do you? Do you think the military of another country would invade to get more people? In this densely populated world more people means more mouths to feed. Invaders are after land and wealth, usually. Furthermore, would you require a military if everyone had unlimited access to the products of society? A society that successful would be the inspiration of rapid duplication around the globe. The kicker is; such a society is not only possible, but great effort is being applied to prevent its inevitable manifestation by completely natural organic means.
There was a man named Thomas Robert Malthus who wrote some books in the late seventeen hundreds that spun a bit of sophistry about over-population and scarcity that have been invaluable tools in the suppression of the human spirit ever since. Today the world is in apoplexy over the growing population and the depleting resources. Malthus was a reverend in the Christian faith and a philosopher economist. He studied societies both present and past, and then postulated their extensions. He went against many well know persons who postulated quite the opposite of his views believing that humans could and would perfect society even unto utopia. The fact that Malthus worked solely within the parameters of society that operates in the usual manner was a great flaw in his thinking. His views assumed that there would always be money regulating access to the products of society. He saw how prosperity caused more births until there was less prosperity that slowed the birth rate. It was a fine bit of sophistry, ingenious. It was totally devoid of any true vision and comprehensive comprehension of society. It appears to be just a way to protect the wealth of the wealthy and to continue the perpetration of a terrible social system, the one that has a king at the top and peasants below.
People began to dislike the idea of Kings and Queens and the social system was modified so that those royals could have their positions without causing the people to revolt again. It was a clever move, and it has everything to do with your money. They merely stepped out of the spot light and temporarily increased the people’s access to the products of society while they devised ways to control the people. For the people was their only threat.
A person was no threat to the wealthy. Killing a person was easy. Killing or imprisoning a lot of people, though more difficult, was easy enough. The real threat has always been The People. Large numbers of people united in a cause stormed the palaces and executed the royals many times in history. This fact was not lost on the wealthy or the royals and they have been at great endeavors to use their wealth to get people to devise ways to prevent such things. Yes, they got the people they wanted to control to devise the means to do so.
Today the people are so outgunned it is ridiculous. The wealthy can bring to bear the unimaginable force of the world’s military might in defense of their wealth. Or maybe you think the military is not at the disposal of the wealthy, like they want you to think. Are those in power wealthy? I rest my case. If you are unable to see that the wealthy can bring to bear the might of the armed, just try to do anything against their wishes. You can end up in prison even if you have lots of money if you go against the greater wealth, or you can end up dead. It has happened many times, whether you are aware of it or not.
It stands as fact that money can get people to do things that a sentient being would find unimaginably horrible. We all know this. There is only one reason this condition exists; access to the products of society is limited. Discrimination is being done that shows the people that there are some who get more and this keeps a false hope alive in the hearts of the people, the hope to rise up to a similar level. The wealthy realized early that hope was essential to the maintenance of a strong and peaceful population of servants, though now they feel crowded by too many servants; yet another topic for later.
People who can get everything they want and need are difficult to manage into doing horrible things. Theft is a rare occurrence in a society that provides unlimited access to the products of society in return for a short term of service. The very character of the people in such a society is something altogether different than that of people in society as it is today, worldwide. When basic needs are met and access to the means of attaining personal fulfillment are readily available, beautiful people occur. In such a society the products of society become beautiful things, works of art, utility, and durability. People become productive in pursuit of their own personal dreams, health, well-being, and community/family desires. A society that is that successful generates generations of ever greater quality and beauty. Vistas become visible that have been shrouded in darkness, invisible to the minds that struggle for survival. The vastness of outer space becomes a beckoning frontier, and that frontier is likely limitless, as are its resources.
On Earth today, resources are being used to operate society. The world over societies, together comprising the super family of our species, operate in such a state of inefficiency that people like Reverend Malthus seem lucid. But the availability of resources and space are only a concern within the systems that operate society as it is today, and there is no reason to continue to operate society as it is today. There is, in fact, overwhelming evidence that the super family of man is headed to its own destruction if the current systems are allowed to continue. Now, do you think you might like to break your mind free of its limits and at least try to envision a better way? Perhaps you could just consider the one you are reading about right now with a mind free of brainwashing that life has done to you since you came into this life.
Note:
This article is testing the waters, so to speak. I have quite a bit of fear around presenting it to the world. Change frightens some. Some would like to see thing continue as they are. So, if I suddenly commit suicide, I really didn’t. Some things are worth dying for, as some things are worth living for. I fear those who oppose egalitarian altruism. I fear those who argue against utopia. The psychology of those people is hard to fathom. The “it can’t be done” crowd, don’t remember Edison and many others. That something doesn’t seem possible to you is not proof of your opinion. Opinions are limited to the scope of the consciousness of the opinion holder. They see reasons why something can’t be done instead of the obstacles that must be surmounted to reach the goal, or they have darker more sinister psychology. I fear there are those who have very sinister desires and who do such things. That is a subject for another time. I do fear that though. I do not fear to fear. Fear is a good thing. It helps me survive.
Anyway, I debated this article for some time. I wrote it quite a while back. The fact that you are reading it tells you what I finally decided. I want world peace, but I want even more. I want everyone to be fulfilled, provided their fulfillment doesn’t require sinister stuff. I want to live in a world of people who love everyone and everything, of happy people who are enjoying the adventure. I want to live in a world of people united in Truth. I am sick of the multitude of arguments on every subject of any importance. I want to live in a world of infinite diversity and possibilities. I do, actually. It just needs to be unfettered.
“Society” is a general word for the associations of humans. You might use the word to mean a certain group of humans or you could use it to mean all humans on Earth. No human lives outside of society. Even the lone explorer who never encounters another human throughout life is a member of society. Seem unlikely or illogical? Humans are born of mothers, so far. So a person who lives in the arctic and never sees another human is simply a member of society that is isolated. There is no escape. We are members of society. This fact is like gravity; your opinion does not change gravity; you cannot escape gravity (even outer space has gravity to some extent); it is something that we can discover but it is there discovered or not. Society is the super family of humans on Earth.
We are all in the same super family. We try to segregate ourselves into groups that we consider our own society, but such groups are merely sub-categories of the general society. The isolated individual living in the arctic is a one member society, as the sub-groups can consist of any number of persons. The super family divides itself into smaller groups based on some human physical characteristic, philosophy, ideology, location, and/or other commonality, though there could be sub-categories of society that have no commonality. The differences used to associate the members of each group would be hard to detect by aliens from another planet because they are actually only slight physical differences or they are differences that exist only in the minds or psyches of the members. We all look mostly alike; we humans. We all are made mostly the same. The differences are slight, but are the focus of most of the separations from one another that we have and have had.
Peace has been a missing part of the super family for a long time. One could argue that there has never been total peace. This argument is easily made when the discord between two or more individuals is added to the mix. Peace between all the members of the human species is very likely something that has never been achieved. Between the sub-categories of human society there have been wars and unimaginable horrors throughout history. They persist even today. Peace is clearly desirable yet it remains an illusive condition. Peace is desired by most people, at least on their surfaces, and still we cannot make it. There are many reasons for this. They must all be recognized and removed.Peace can be attained. Peace must be attained!
Of course, love is the answer. Love has been promoted (pardon the word) by great people throughout history. Saints, sages, saviors, poets, artists, and people throughout the super family have advocated for love, even at the cost of life. Peace is a natural result of love. Love for one another will bring peace, it will also bring answers to all our other problems.
Love is the answer only when it is the love that is the answer. Love comes in probably as many forms as there are individual humans, even as many as have ever been. Are all these versions of love the love that is the answer?
Plato wrote about love and “platonic love” has become a set of words that have nothing to do with what Plato wrote about, unless one extrapolates into tedium that destroys his efforts. Plato’s Symposium is readily available via the internet and the libraries. Suffice it to say, Plato attempted to bring to light a certain type of love. Love can be something that enraptures. Love can be something that is life changing. Love can reunite the individuals of the super family of humans and bring peace at last.
The love that is the answer is something that one must create. One must give life to love. By being the creator of unconditional, invincible, everlasting love, one can find the answer for oneself. Here is where true fulfillment lies.
True happiness cannot be found outside oneself. Just as the laws of gravity apply to us all, the laws of happiness apply to us all. Like gravity, these laws, which are only “laws” because we have no better language, are there to be discovered or not. They are real and they are there to take each of us to our own fulfillment; much as gravity is there to hold us to this spinning ball we call home. Gravity holds us down. Love lifts us up.
As members of the super family, the society, we all have our needs and desires. We all have our paths to follow. No two people can occupy the same point in time and space, so the path to anywhere must be unique for each individual. Thankfully, we can communicate across our paths and share the experiences of our unique journeys. We will find them amazingly similar.
Paths are traversed. Movement is required. Even the act of not moving is moving along a path. It is traversing a path of stillness. Life is happening! Even the option of death is life happening. We are all inexorably bound in life.
In our lives we follow our unique paths to somewhere. But where are the paths taking us? They are taking us where we must go, every one of us.Where is that? Humans have been asking this question a long time. There have been astonishing lives dedicated to seeking the answer to that question. There are many who believe they know where we are going. Perhaps they do, or perhaps they are wrong. Many have suffered and died in beliefs that have proven to be wrong. The answer is available, but it will come to each of us individually for a while until the light of truth becomes visible to all. It is and has been a phenomenon of human behavior to persecute those who disagree with them, sadly.
Many have been subjected to unspeakable horrors simply because they discovered something before it was obvious to the rest of the people. Consider the discoveries that the earth is round, or that the earth is not in the center of the galaxy or universe. History is replete with discoveries of this type and the sad stories about what happened to those who brought them to the people are stories about crimes against humanity. If you know where our paths are taking us, you might be wise to keep it to yourself; even in this “modern” time. Still, we can consider our destinations in general ways.
We are born with a great set of conditions and circumstances that set the nature of our paths. The time of our births sets an overwhelming amount of factors in our lives. If you were born seven hundred years ago, your life would have been very different from that of one born yesterday. You were born as the person you are, nothing more and nothing less. Your identity is set. You are unique but you are mostly like everyone else. You have no choice about who you are. It is a factor of your life just as your time is. You are you in your time. We are all together in this. None is exempt. We are born into the world and all we can do is attempt to negotiate along the paths we find ourselves facing.
The factors that determine the courses of our lives are bound to us. Who can live outside these factors? Who can escape them? It appears certain that the path each of us must take is limited by all the factors of our individuality. Our freedom is only within this limited scope, and our destinations are likewise constrained. So, where are we going? On and on!
To stop moving is to die. Survival requires movement. You must breathe in and out or die. This requirement to move hints that there might be no ultimate destination. If there is no ultimate destination, an infinite journey could be a wonderful fact. Clearly, we can rest and/or linger along the way as much as we like; people doing so are evident to even the most casual observer. Complete stillness is evidently impossible, since even the stuff of matter is an atomic universe of motion. Even in death there is no stillness. Which does not mean that we cannot be still in the classic sense of the word; indeed, we can benefit greatly by such stillness.
Among humans there is a wide-spread thought that life is only to be cast off in favor of what comes after death. It is an ancient ideology. People have lived lives in preparation for the “after-life” throughout known history. None of the people who aspire thusly are doing so outside the lives they have. They are on a path just as everyone else is. The after-life is only attainable through this life and requires death. What will be the nature of that death? It will be the end of a life as a human on a path. There is no way to die without living and there is a possibility that the after-life is effected by life. It seems strange to have to advocate for a good life of benevolence, happiness, and wisdom, since all can suffer or pleasure. Yet, the need is real. Perhaps the after-life is the place to be, but life is the expedient we are inexorably bound to expedite, and no thoughts of the after-life remove this requirement from us. Opinions vary, but all opinions are held in this life. We must deal with this life and that means we must negotiate our paths. We must move.
So, if movement is inescapable, why not move to unite the members of the super family into a loving group that frolics in the excitement of the journey in this seemingly infinite universe of wonders? We can join our forces into a family that nurtures all; that cares for all; that thrills in the uniqueness and the similarity. We can take an assessment of all our needs and desires then set to work fulfilling them. With all our genius, our energy, and with all the work that has been done by our ancestors, we can make life more wonderful than any can even imagine at this time, much less have.
No amount of wealth can make a person’s life as fulfilling as it could be in a world of love. No amount of asceticism can provide the fulfillment that a world of love can provide. If we will simply take charge of our individual selves and set our hearts on the goal of love, every living entity will find its path one of incomparable beauty and joy. Bliss is available. Invincible, ever-increasing, limitless bliss. Now, wouldn’t that be a fine path to the after-life!
Consider for a moment the possibility that there could be an alternative to death, a way to the after-life other than death. Consider, too, the large number of people who believe in reincarnation. There is much to consider!
Stay tuned to this site. There is so much more to come! You can sign up to be notified of new posts by clicking on the link to the right of this page and supplying the basic information.
