16 ms·
It'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
by mvzink 15y ago
It'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.