The Truth About the Economy

[yodajazz]

I know it's not a commodity, but it is a standard of valuation, and while I realize some of the issues with pegging it to any one thing (such as gold), it seems to me that it is not quite limitless, otherwise it really couldn't accurately reflect value. Tbh, I'm not sure that was your point anyway, and this isn't an area I'm entirely clear about, but the earlier statement struck me as strange (hence the request).

There is a way of thinking that says money and any material thing are limited, vs. the 'unlimited' philosophy. The most common way it is expressed is to look at your occupation. If you think that someone else's success is taking away from your own, that's the limitation viewpoint. The other viewpoint, is that things expand, such as success and money.

A current strain of thinking is that poor people, who often receive government financial support are a drain on society. It has been expressed here. But take an example, that you are wealthy, and have stock in a company that runs a cell phone network. The expansion view, see financial support to the poor, as increasing the total population who can afford cell phones. Even if those poor cannot afford the phones themselves, their available funds would help employ those who could, thus expanding your own profits. So the bottom line is the ability to see that your taxes, come back to you, through an economy that is capable of expanding whatever you occupation may be.

While the limitation philosophy also has truth, the inability to see that life, including money expands, leads people to false realities. Thus we have today, a nation with major crisises, yet many people dont believe that giving, is part of the solution. An example, is that financial support for education is shrinking in general, yet many dont care,that more education produces people who have skills to prosper in a global economy, thus is good for the nation as a whole.

[Stavros]

It's pretty self explanitory. Money's not a commodity. It's just numbers in a ledger.

I am surprised at you Hippifried, money is precisely a commodity -Karl Marx opens his famous (and largely unread) book Capital, Vol 1 with the sentence: The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an "immense collection of commodities"; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form.

Marx was forced back to the drawing board following the failure of the 1848 'Revolutions' in Europe to introduce communism -he spent the rest of his life examining how capitalism worked, in effect doing for the last quarter of the 19thc what Adam Smith had done a century before. The moral tone was different -there used to be an exam question on my Political Philosophy course when I was an undergraduate: 'Consider the view that Marx's philosophy is a form of moral indignation'.

The point is commodities are crucial to capitalism, money most of all: in fact the abolition of private property in a Marxian sense must mean the abolition of money even though most people think it means their houses and cars. I once asked a Trotskyist to explain why he didn't campaign on the abolition of money and he hummed and hahed and gave the usual Trotskyist response -'that's for later after we have completed the transition...'. That's the 'transition' that begins with a revolution by the way....Nevertheless, its another facet of Communism that doesn't often get discussed. A stalwart of the Communist Party of Great Britain once explained to me that when they took control of Britain, they would immediately re-introduce rationing, and this was in the 1980s! The phrase 'out of touch' came to mind, but then if he had been 'in touch' with his times he wouldn't have been in the Party.

I saw an advert once, a well-known escort who said that for her services she wanted '300 Roses'. I did actually wonder if 300 roses cost more than £300 or even $300, and also wondered what would happen if a client actually did take the roses and refused to hand over any money -so you see, money does exist, it is a commodity -just like an escort....

[joeninety]

It's pretty self explanitory. Money's not a commodity. It's just numbers in a ledger.

I am surprised at you Hippifried, money is precisely a commodity -Karl Marx opens his famous (and largely unread) book Capital, Vol 1 with the sentence: The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an "immense collection of commodities"; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form.

Marx was forced back to the drawing board following the failure of the 1848 'Revolutions' in Europe to introduce communism -he spent the rest of his life examining how capitalism worked, in effect doing for the last quarter of the 19thc what Adam Smith had done a century before. The moral tone was different -there used to be an exam question on my Political Philosophy course when I was an undergraduate: 'Consider the view that Marx's philosophy is a form of moral indignation'.

The point is commodities are crucial to capitalism, money most of all: in fact the abolition of private property in a Marxian sense must mean the abolition of money even though most people think it means their houses and cars. I once asked a Trotskyist to explain why he didn't campaign on the abolition of money and he hummed and hahed and gave the usual Trotskyist response -'that's for later after we have completed the transition...'. That's the 'transition' that begins with a revolution by the way....Nevertheless, its another facet of Communism that doesn't often get discussed. A stalwart of the Communist Party of Great Britain once explained to me that when they took control of Britain, they would immediately re-introduce rationing, and this was in the 1980s! The phrase 'out of touch' came to mind, but then if he had been 'in touch' with his times he wouldn't have been in the Party.

I saw an advert once, a well-known escort who said that for her services she wanted '300 Roses'. I did actually wonder if 300 roses cost more than £300 or even $300, and also wondered what would happen if a client actually did take the roses and refused to hand over any money -so you see, money does exist, it is a commodity -just like an escort....

Hippifried is actually correct money in most senses is not a commodity, bar commodity money whose value comes from the commodity from which it is made from, therein it has value in itself, as well as a use for money.

You can have representative money which is essentially commodity backed, there is also what is called Fiat money which is money that has value only because of government regulation or law.

Then you have legal tender which is the type of money i think you and hippifried refer to "which is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation". Paper currency and coins are common forms of legal tender.

Money in the sense as you know it is not a commodity it is merely a valid medium of exchange for meeting a financial obligation, money is just the intermediate stage, its just a shorthand for whatever people want.

[joeninety]

There is a way of thinking that says money and any material thing are limited, vs. the 'unlimited' philosophy. The most common way it is expressed is to look at your occupation. If you think that someone else's success is taking away from your own, that's the limitation viewpoint. The other viewpoint, is that things expand, such as success and money.

A current strain of thinking is that poor people, who often receive government financial support are a drain on society. It has been expressed here. But take an example, that you are wealthy, and have stock in a company that runs a cell phone network. The expansion view, see financial support to the poor, as increasing the total population who can afford cell phones. Even if those poor cannot afford the phones themselves, their available funds would help employ those who could, thus expanding your own profits. So the bottom line is the ability to see that your taxes, come back to you, through an economy that is capable of expanding whatever you occupation may be.

While the limitation philosophy also has truth, the inability to see that life, including money expands, leads people to false realities. Thus we have today, a nation with major crisises, yet many people dont believe that giving, is part of the solution. An example, is that financial support for education is shrinking in general, yet many dont care,that more education produces people who have skills to prosper in a global economy, thus is good for the nation as a whole.

Sounds like you are referring to the pie fallacy Article enclosed below:


The Pie Fallacy

A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that's not the same thing.

When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. "You can't make the pie larger," say politicians. When you're talking about the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.

I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you're planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.

What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It's just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.

Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it.

In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven't made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. [5]

Kids know, without knowing they know, that they can create wealth. If you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you make one. But kids are so bad at making things that they consider home-made presents to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones-- a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts. And indeed, the lumpy ashtrays we made for our parents did not have much of a resale market.

[joeninety]

It's pretty self explanitory. Money's not a commodity. It's just numbers in a ledger. It's how we keep track of real trades of goods & services, & the differences in valuations. There's no limit to the supply because it's not tangible in the first place, & it's created by debt. There's no supply & demand pressures on money itself. It's all bullshit & the currency exchange is a fraud. This current inflation spiral is artificial, & coincides with the demise of Bretton Woods by the Nixon shock. Speculative slight of hand has been devaluing money for the last 40 years. It's all short selling because the only way to make profit on the FOREX is by betting on the rate of decline.

Well said its all bs, that is why our Goverment even decided to print up x amount extra more pounds to put into circulation, that is why the American dollar was so easy to counterfeit up until recently, all underhand and devious tactics its monkey business.

[Stavros]

Money in the sense as you know it is not a commodity it is merely a valid medium of exchange for meeting a financial obligation, money is just the intermediate stage, its just a shorthand for whatever people want.

Joe, you don't have to agree with Marx, who was wrong about a lot of things, but his analysis of Capitalism centres on precisely how the historical development of something abstract -money- came to replace tangible items as the principal medium of exchange: instead of exchanging corn or leather for cotton and carrots, money became the most flexible commodity in exchange relations, and in doing so initiated what Marx calls a process of reification in which all relationships in capitalist society are 'materialised' into commodities: to accept money as a commodity on an eqal par with love is precisely the moral element in Marx that so many find uncomfortable: take it or leave it. For Marx, the arrival of money as the medium of exchange also grew with market societies and the bourgeoisies, the merchants and capitalists who were able to take control of -for example- agriculture by purchasing the land, turning the farmers into wage slaves, and then selling produce at a 'market' price rather than at its 'natural' price: but of course, exploitation in Marx is also that moral element you either accept or reject. We tend now to accept that markets are the most efficient way of organising and distributing goods -if markets are not fair then we can subject them to regulation: but money became the critical tool in all market relations.

Thus, money, and all forms of money, are commodities, because in a capitalist economy, everything is a commodity.

[joeninety]

Money in the sense as you know it is not a commodity it is merely a valid medium of exchange for meeting a financial obligation, money is just the intermediate stage, its just a shorthand for whatever people want.

Joe, you don't have to agree with Marx, who was wrong about a lot of things, but his analysis of Capitalism centres on precisely how the historical development of something abstract -money- came to replace tangible items as the principal medium of exchange: instead of exchanging corn or leather for cotton and carrots, money became the most flexible commodity in exchange relations, and in doing so initiated what Marx calls a process of reification in which all relationships in capitalist society are 'materialised' into commodities: to accept money as a commodity on an eqal par with love is precisely the moral element in Marx that so many find uncomfortable: take it or leave it. For Marx, the arrival of money as the medium of exchange also grew with market societies and the bourgeoisies, the merchants and capitalists who were able to take control of -for example- agriculture by purchasing the land, turning the farmers into wage slaves, and then selling produce at a 'market' price rather than at its 'natural' price: but of course, exploitation in Marx is also that moral element you either accept or reject. We tend now to accept that markets are the most efficient way of organising and distributing goods -if markets are not fair then we can subject them to regulation: but money became the critical tool in all market relations.

Thus, money, and all forms of money, are commodities, because in a capitalist economy, everything is a commodity.

Ok i will put it another way take a stack of notes say a million pounds worth but there is nothing available to buy ever, what then becomes the value of said notes, you can't eat them, you cannot build a decent shelter with them or drink them so why would anyone want them because as a stand alone item they are worthless.

Money is worthless without commodities to trade with, whereas if there is no money commodities will always be of great value regardless, its just that trading will be a lot more long winded.

Your example of those that purchased land has missed a point in that the land purchasers would of had considerably wealth assets commodities behind them that would of enabled them to gain more power and purchasing power, thus enabling more access to money, but it is not the money that makes them wealthy rather it is the asset/assets commodities accumulated that guarantees your wealth, that is why the wage slaves exist because of lack of knowledge wealth, and lack of commodity wealth, and the poorer you are the harder you can be enslaved.

Its going on right now and its time for a revolution, real power could lie in the united masses by way of force, but these crafty fucks up top have got us all segregated, disenfranchised and too fucking dumbed down to fight and actually see what is going on, so divided we 85%-95% are falling and falling hard yet we still won't do anything and are getting slaughtered bloody sheep.

[hippifried]

Money is an exchange medium. It's how we make comparative trade valuations between dissimilar things like say, livestock to iron ore, or wheat to wages. It's a simplification of barter. It loses the intermediate steps so that you don't have to make a half dozen trades to swap a chicken for some cloth. We use currency because that's what we're used to. The Inca built a civilization that spanned the length of the Andes, complete with trails & bridges to facilitate trade & communications. They had an elaborate accounting system of debts & payments recorded with strings & knots that we're still trying to de3cipher, but they had no hard currency. They had l9ots of gold, but it never occured to them to use it as money. Same with the Maya & the mound builders who built roads tying together the entire central United States, & didn't even have a beast of burdon. There's really no telling how gold became synonymous with money & wealth in the Afro-Eurasian landmass. My personal theory is that it was easy to work with & had no other function. Even today. It's a terrific conductor, but nobody knew that then. Its insanely inflated monetary value is nothing but mystique & wishful thinking by those who hoard it. The flaw in Bretton Woods was the peg to gold.

The problem with treating money as a commodity is that there's no money. Really, think about it. When you're swapping currencies, what's the exchange medium? Where's the constant that allows comparative valuations? Compared to what? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! At least when you're evaluating goods & services, you have money as a constant. Or it used to be. Since money really isn't a commodity, & there's no constant exchange medium, The only way to make money off trading it is to short sell & hope your accumulation can outpace the inflationary loss. Without inflation, there's no profit in trading currencies, or going into long term debt. The current spiral is artificial, & controlled by speculation in derivative currency futures. It's just betting on the rate of decline, & allowing continuous decline just so someone can make a bet is insane. There's no way to regulate a market that has no borders or national loyalties. Claiming that inflation is manageable by keeping it under a specific percentage is a lie because it compounds. This isn't investment. It's just gambling, & the consumers & wage earners lose because they can't keep up. Wanna stop all this insanity? Peg the currencies while everybody figures out how to structure the world currency that's inevitable. Shut down the money exchange.