Hi Jeff. This is a good post and a good topic, and I have been reflecting on the matter of money (which as you point out is not the same as wealth). It was an archdruid report post a long time ago that started me thinking about the three economies you mention, but the revelation that I've had lately is the realisation that if I wish to increase the "weal" of myself and others, it is important for me to aspire to have and to use LESS money, not more.
The reason for this is that money is debt. For anyone to HAVE a dollar to spend (whether it is cash, or a pixel denoting a balance in a bank account), that farmer has to have borrowed it from a bank and put it into circulation. The bank created the loan from nothing, as two opposite ledger entries (one being dollars into the farmer's account, the other being the value of the bank's "asset" - which consists of the farmer's work to pay off the loan+interest and/or the value of the land the farmer used as collateral). But the bank is also entitled in legally enforceable ways, to look for the repayment of the principle - equivalent to the money it created with the loan - AND the agreed interest - which it did not create, and which does not, in fact, exist. It is a game of musical chairs which only continues through the endless addition of new chairs and occupants, even as some of the old ones are taken away, and some of the old participants *must* lose and fall out of the game.
There are two important points to notice here. The first is that when you multiply this out you realise that *by definition* there can NEVER be as much money currently in circulation as is currently owed. A money supply based on the creation of debt+interest must - eventually - eat itself. Because every dollar in circulation *by definition* represents (say) a dollar and 10 cents owed. Where can that extra 10 cents come from? Only from ongoing exploitation - by turning every living being, and its wealth-making activity, into a "resource" to extract. And this makes me think that debt-based money, specifically, IS the engine by means of which the third economy co-opts the energies and best intentions of the second economy, into the never-ending "extraction of value" from the first economy which is eroding the basis of our life on this earth.
And two, this specifically means that every dollar in circulation represents a legally enforceable creditor's claim upon the work and/or the possessions of a debtor. It is this that makes me realise that if I personally want to see LESS coerced labour, and LESS repossession, it follows that I must strive to need to use LESS money. And look to enhancing "weal" in other ways.
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This is a good post and a good topic, and I have been reflecting on the matter of money (which as you point out is not the same as wealth). It was an archdruid report post a long time ago that started me thinking about the three economies you mention, but the revelation that I've had lately is the realisation that if I wish to increase the "weal" of myself and others, it is important for me to aspire to have and to use LESS money, not more.
The reason for this is that money is debt. For anyone to HAVE a dollar to spend (whether it is cash, or a pixel denoting a balance in a bank account), that farmer has to have borrowed it from a bank and put it into circulation. The bank created the loan from nothing, as two opposite ledger entries (one being dollars into the farmer's account, the other being the value of the bank's "asset" - which consists of the farmer's work to pay off the loan+interest and/or the value of the land the farmer used as collateral). But the bank is also entitled in legally enforceable ways, to look for the repayment of the principle - equivalent to the money it created with the loan - AND the agreed interest - which it did not create, and which does not, in fact, exist. It is a game of musical chairs which only continues through the endless addition of new chairs and occupants, even as some of the old ones are taken away, and some of the old participants *must* lose and fall out of the game.
There are two important points to notice here. The first is that when you multiply this out you realise that *by definition* there can NEVER be as much money currently in circulation as is currently owed. A money supply based on the creation of debt+interest must - eventually - eat itself. Because every dollar in circulation *by definition* represents (say) a dollar and 10 cents owed. Where can that extra 10 cents come from? Only from ongoing exploitation - by turning every living being, and its wealth-making activity, into a "resource" to extract. And this makes me think that debt-based money, specifically, IS the engine by means of which the third economy co-opts the energies and best intentions of the second economy, into the never-ending "extraction of value" from the first economy which is eroding the basis of our life on this earth.
And two, this specifically means that every dollar in circulation represents a legally enforceable creditor's claim upon the work and/or the possessions of a debtor. It is this that makes me realise that if I personally want to see LESS coerced labour, and LESS repossession, it follows that I must strive to need to use LESS money. And look to enhancing "weal" in other ways.