There is a recently circulating document that supports an anarchistic hostility toward money. I give a reference to this fallacious argument, only reluctantly.
The anarchistic argument against money is essentially tribal. People act generously where money does not function.
This is true and it highlights the genius of money and the nature of money.
We do not live in tribes where we are able to exchange goods and services among our family and peers. We live in a society where every single object, without exception, with no exception, is generated in the marketplace.
I have studied many tribes and visited many. It is indeed true that they do not use money within their tribe if the tribe is small enough. They must use money, even in the form of cowry shells if they want any goods or services that the tribe cannot produce.
If we look at the contemporary world, everything is the byproduct of people cooperating because they can buy and sell using the medium of money.
Even the lemon on my desk is the byproduct of trade despite the fact that it was given to me as a gift by a friend. The seeds for the tree, much of the fertilizer, and all of the tools used in the creation and care for the lemon tree came from thousands of people around the world who cooperated via the money market. It was a gift to me, but it existed because of the cooperation of thousands of strangers, many of whom would not like each other at all.
I am particularly guilty of failing to understand the fallacy of local currency. Back in the day when I had organized the Briarpatch network of businesses in the Bay Area, nearly 1000 members at one point, I proceeded to design and plan for a local Briarpatch currency that the members could use for intercourse.
I still have the paper in my closet. It was designed to be impossible to imitate. It was made in one small Japanese mountain village. It is a unique design of mulberry paper.
While this currency would have circulated among the thousand Briars, it would have been nothing more than a beautiful vanity object. It would have been irrelevant to trade outside of the small circle.
Not surprisingly it would have been very profitable for me as the banker, because a large percentage of the currency in circulation would never be converted back into dollars.... Most of it would be saved as rare mementos.
Money was the first invention that took us on the road to global cooperation among people who don’t like each other and who will never meet, but whose skills are vital to each of us.
The anarchistic argument against money is essentially tribal. People act generously where money does not function.
We do not live in tribes where we are able to exchange goods and services among our family and peers. We live in a society where every single object, without exception, with no exception, is generated in the marketplace.
I have studied many tribes and visited many. It is indeed true that they do not use money within their tribe if the tribe is small enough. They must use money, even in the form of cowry shells if they want any goods or services that the tribe cannot produce.
If we look at the contemporary world, everything is the byproduct of people cooperating because they can buy and sell using the medium of money.
Even the lemon on my desk is the byproduct of trade despite the fact that it was given to me as a gift by a friend. The seeds for the tree, much of the fertilizer, and all of the tools used in the creation and care for the lemon tree came from thousands of people around the world who cooperated via the money market. It was a gift to me, but it existed because of the cooperation of thousands of strangers, many of whom would not like each other at all.
I am particularly guilty of failing to understand the fallacy of local currency. Back in the day when I had organized the Briarpatch network of businesses in the Bay Area, nearly 1000 members at one point, I proceeded to design and plan for a local Briarpatch currency that the members could use for intercourse.
I still have the paper in my closet. It was designed to be impossible to imitate. It was made in one small Japanese mountain village. It is a unique design of mulberry paper.
While this currency would have circulated among the thousand Briars, it would have been nothing more than a beautiful vanity object. It would have been irrelevant to trade outside of the small circle.
Not surprisingly it would have been very profitable for me as the banker, because a large percentage of the currency in circulation would never be converted back into dollars.... Most of it would be saved as rare mementos.
Money was the first invention that took us on the road to global cooperation among people who don’t like each other and who will never meet, but whose skills are vital to each of us.