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.
I was up before noon today, Sunday. Not much before noon. I was up until nearly 2a.m. watching television and reading. It is my morning. I feel so great it is not easy to express, and expression is essential. So, here I sit with my fingers flying too fast across the keyboard tying to keep up with the waves of inspiration that flood through me, especially on Sundays. I make typing mistakes too frequently when trying to keep up with that torrent of bliss and inspiration. I don’t slow down, though. I try to type faster with fewer mistakes. It’s like budgeting. I don’t try to economize. Instead, I try to increase my income to keep up with spending.
Being born in the Protestant Christian area of central Texas has imprinted some special considerations for Sundays. “Remember the sabbath and keep it holy.” That is something I kept after being reborn and recreating myself intentionally. I like that idea of putting aside time for communion with the lord. I don’t have Christian beliefs about God. I rejected them in 1960. When Love caused me to lift from my body and see myself as I was, I decided to start over. I still can’t explain it well, but I can tell you I abandoned all concepts of God and religion. It was about twenty years later when the Heavenly Parents blessed me with something of a psychic visit that I began to include such things in my being. I don’t believe in God. I know God and Goddess, instead. Faith that God exists is not something I am willing to indulge. I do have faith that God is good. I have faith that Goddess is good. I would write page after page about it, but I want mankind to keep such thoughts personal. I don’t like the way people proselytize and try to get others to believe as they do. I am especially opposed to making children go to church or whatever place the delivery of some religion or ideas about theology are taught. Anyone of sound mind can see that horrors of today and yesterday the religions have created. I think God would not come among us as long as so many are so lost in false beliefs and religious zeal, and conflicted beliefs. On the other hand, there is something to be said about history being what it was because it had to be. Can God be everything everyone thinks and has thought since the beginning? I don’t see how. The beliefs are too contradictory and conflicting. The Christian religion cannot be removed from the horrors done in the name of Jesus. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion, too. So, what can be done?
I wish I knew as much about the Muslim religion as I do about the Christian religion. I know quite a bit about Judaism because of the Old Testament of Christianity, but not enough. The Bible is a beautiful book. Many wonderful and beautiful things have come from Christianity. The Bible has been influential in causing a lot of good and a lot of evil by people. Wisdom is where it is. The Bible is full of wisdom. It is full of contradictions and false reports about facts. If has many stories that are total fiction. This is blasphemy, I know. That is the problem. People have murdered countless people for heresy, and not just murdered but tortured, too. Burning people tied to a stake in a bonfire is one of history’s worst horrors. Killing people because they don’t believe as you do could be the most heinous of all murders. How can it not be the root of bigotry, racism, prejudice, supremacy, and other wrongs that cause horrible actions?
“God’s chosen people,” the temptation of Eve, the covenant with the Israelites, and dominion over the Earth are just some of the roots of things now seen as beliefs that have caused great horrors since they began. If an individual believes such things, that does not cause nearly as much murder and war as vast numbers of people believing does. The things people believe of God are more man creating God in their image than God creating man in his image. This would be obvious to an adult that was not indoctrinated by parents, churches, and members of that child’s society. The Bible tells people they are better than other forms of life even though Genesis says God blessed all forms of life as he created them. It also says that he gave all the animals and man the fruit of plant for food. “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Genesis 1:29 – 30. Do you abide by that in your life? Or do you live by the punishment God imposed on Adam and Eve after they ate of the tree of knowledge? You do. Face it.
God does not say in the Bible that mankind and all the other types of life that can move about will be punished forever because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. There are passages that say the punishments by God will be visited upon the next three or four generations. “Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:7 There are other passages regarding the punishment of the generations, and translations vary too much. “The NIV translates Exodus 20:5 as “punished the children for the sin of the parents,” while the RSV says “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.” https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/exodus-205-%E2%80%93-punishing-children-sins-fathers Translations vary and the “word of God” changes accordingly. I cannot accept that God’s word can be changed by translations. So, the Bible does not qualify as the “word of God,” but as the faulty word of man. People who are zealous about the Bible being the word of God have done immense evil in the past and continue to do so today. Murder in the name of God is evil. The actions against heresy are evil. Forcing someone to adopt certain beliefs is evil. I define it that way. Those who don’t are more aligned with what they think of as the devil than with God or Jesus. Do you think the Disciples would have burned a human at the stake for not accepting the things they were telling them? Of course, a person who lives according to the Old Testament might.
Are you aware of the War Scroll found at Qumran? It was among the Dead Sea Scrolls. It says there will be “The war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.” It is easy to find on the internet, but not so easy to read. I have two books of the English translations of the Dead Sea scrolls. The war scroll is about a war to come in which the divine will help the writers of the scrolls vanquish the opposition. It is a fantastic text. Far out there. There are Christians who believe similarly. Both religions have ardents who want to see the war come. War! That is nothing new. It is still a part of the human desires. The zealous believers of both religions desire an end to opposition. They want supremacy of beliefs and rights to bring others into those beliefs. Add to that the problems of translation and the “rights” to ancient text and we have the world we have today, a world plunging toward a gigantic holocaust with mankind fighting over opposing beliefs. Even the “war” over the right to copyrights for books of interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls has happened. See; https://www.bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/flesher-111600 Such conflicts have always plagued mankind. As though the beliefs of a person should have sway over the beliefs of others, and even convey the right to kill people who do not conform. The need to keep such things personal and private could not be made more evident.
The troubles of mankind regarding beliefs, theology, ideology, opinions are immense and persistent. It is difficult to comprehend the psychology that dominates such people. It goes far beyond the simple workings of a human brain. I cannot represent the fact about it, but I can feel them. There are things beyond this dimension that influence this one. Theology is of that sort, but there are people who maintain other concepts about other dimensions. The facts are disputed, but the facts are the facts. All that is missing is widespread knowing of the facts. It cannot rationally be a fight or a matter of indoctrinating the young to grow up believing what the adults want them to believe. It must be more objective than that, and it must conform to the facts in the other dimensions, whatever they are. Will we prevent the accomplishment of world-peace and prosperity for all so we can fight over our beliefs about things we cannot even sense with the senses? I say let such thing be personal and help the young find their own way free of indoctrination with the ways and beliefs of the adults. This must be translated into the ways we help adults find their way after tragedies, emotional breakdowns, and other mental/emotional trouble. There are so many people out there trying to help adults who are having trouble by getting them to come into one of the many religions or other beliefs. There is no freedom when there is effort being expended to convince others to think and feel the way the convincer does. Sure, sometimes people get relief and even healing from such efforts, but the history of mankind is old, and the suffering and horrors of life are just as old. To cause an end to it and bring on world-peace, prosperity for all, and personal fulfillment to all things must change at a deep and core level. That says nothing about the dominion over all the other forms of life, and that is essential to a utopic future. The future is coming. That we know. What form will it take? Let’s make it a utopic one.
Victor Frankel’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, stands immortal in its wisdom. But mankind finds meaning in fiction, horror, evil, and endless horrors committed to living things. The plant kingdom said to be blessed by God in the Bible are nothing to the vast majority of mankind today and throughout history.
