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The problem with this is simple: money is power. Those that have it are deeply invested in keeping it that way. Any other social currency is DOA until that chan
by cageface 15y ago
The problem with this is simple: money is power. Those that have it are deeply invested in keeping it that way. Any other social currency is DOA until that changes somehow.
- mvzink 15y agoIt's worth noting that there is some consensus amongst sociologists that money and people are the two primary forms of power. (And I do mean primary: all other forms of power derive from them.) It's also worth noting, in a much less constructive but perhaps more interesting discussion, that "money is power" presupposes a power structure that allows money to exist. Hmm...
- cageface 15y agoSure, you have to bootstrap money from more fundamental conditions. But once it's bootstrapped it seems remarkably tenacious.
- itmag 15y agoOne area that interests me: the metaphysics of money. Anyone that has any ideas on that, please tell me :)
- arethuza 15y agoNiall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money It's a fairly readable history of money, credit and related topics (e.g. the bond market and insurance).
- itmag 15y agoI have George Simmel's "The Philosophy of Money" but I haven't read it yet. Bought it on the recommendation of this guy: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-independence-of-money.html http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-independence-of-money....
- TeMPOraL 15y agoMoney seems to be a natural consequence of trying to scale up barter trade, and allows society to specialize. It's hard for me to imagine how a resource-scarce society can expand without some form of 'currency' (be it our 'normal' money, reputation, whatever), that would be a unified unit of value for all things one wants to exchange.