I see many books, lots of debate societies and lots of disinformation / misinformation about Capitalism, what it is, whether it’s Good or Bad, and so on.
It’s really very simple.
- Start with merchants, tradesmen, farmers and ranchers who have goods and services to offer.
- People can simply swap goods and services with each other, or
- They can “pay” using a standardized medium of exchange: Coin of the Realm.
- Now… here comes the Bad Part:
- Then the Realm will get the bright idea of “taxing” usage of the Coin of the Realm, getting greedy in its own right. (“Realms” tend to forget that they are abstractions whose only purpose is to serve the people, not the power structure. Oh well…) This taxation reduces the effective buying power of the Coin, and changes all the new-fangled economics, just like that.
- That Coin of the Realm, because it can buy anything… becomes itself sought after, rather than the things it might be exchanged for. People start looking for ways to acquire a lot of said Coin all by itself, including steal it, both legally and illegally. It has become a commodity.
- When the Coin of the Realm becomes a commodity, it is no longer “money” in the normally understood sense, and that way lies Madness(1).
There’s a reason why Usury — that is, interest paid on the usage of some one else’s money, at any rate, even a small one — is considered a Mortal Sin, by some folks. Because that way lies Madness and the eventual collapse of… well… everything.
When money becomes a commodity, a thing in itself, when its circulation is taxed (taxed when you “earn” it, taxed when you “spend” it) and when interest on money is charged… it ceases to be money any more. Interest is how Powers That Be take money right out of your pocket, without even a how-do-you-do first. During the time you have read this article, even up to this point, the purchasing power of any money on your person has been reduced, a microscopic amount, to be sure, but a true amount, all the same. Every second, your money is diminished because some other person or consortium is making money on taxes, interest rates and international money markets. Theft, in other words.
Then follows the accumulation of wealth into too few hands, money being equated with power, manipulating stock markets with a whisper, change the balance between nations by buying one coin and selling another.
I’m not saying Capitalism is bad. In itself, it’s not. Like Atomic Power, it’s not evil in itself. What people chose to do with it is evil or it isn’t.
For instance, there’s a thing called Community Capitalism that actually works quite well and is very hard to subvert.
So here’s my point. Should the current world situation go south and we find ourselves in, say, the post-apocalypse world from the movie The Postman, remember this: don’t start charging interest on money, or swapping currency at a fee, or anything that turns the Coin of the Realm back into a commodity.
There’s an old expression: neither a lender nor a borrower be. That is, pay cash, or do without. Maybe that has something to do with my point. Maybe…
(Ok, very, very, very over-simplified. Well, I’m making a point here, not running for Chief Usurer or Secretary of the Treasury or any such.)
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(1) Ok, this point needs clarification, and I might expand on this at some point in the future. For now, if it’s not clear, try thinking it through on your own, or maybe I’m the one who’s totally missed it. For that, too, is utterly possible. These postings are really just my thoughts. After all, we live in a world where there are — effectively — no actual facts, anyway. (Another posting, there, some time. 🙂 )