I Fucking Hate Money

And all the evils that it buys.

America’s constant entrancement and pursuit of money is sickening to me. Tales of amassing personal wealth sickens me. It’s all one giant selfish freakshow where no one is in charge, except for this concept of a thing which we willingly put on a pedestal and be in charge of our lives. To begin with this, let’s look at the history of money:

Money is an extension of the barter system

In the past, things used to be traded as an exchange. I do something for you, you give me something back. In early times, this was as simple as, I gather berries, you hunt for caribou. Everyone eats. And when there’s a war, our warriors will protect us. We exchange with them food for protection and vice versa. Now as societies got more complex, those exchange of goods came to be more complex. You build my roof, I give you some apples. However, at certain times there was an imbalance. A service was needed but the return exchange wasn’t necessarily wanted. You may need a roof built right now, but I don’t want to eat apples right now. To build your roof would cost 100 apples. And I can’t eat that many, nor do I want them to spoil, or maybe I plum just don’t like apples. What do you do then? A roof still needs to be built, and all you have are apples that you know people will want, just not this particular roof builder right now. Well then you exchange something else. In the end, people began to exchange metal. Which pretty much constituted an IOU that was universally accepted in all of society. You build my room, I give you x amount of metal which our entire society agrees is worth 1 apple. You can use that money later to buy an apple back from me or from anyone, or you can use it to buy a banana, or a boat. Who cares? It’s your money. Now we progress.

At a certain point in time, there was a mass realization that a nation’s amassed wealth was worth only as much metal as could be found and compiled. Obviously there needed to be a way to expand a nation’s capability and wealth without relying on a gold-backed standard. That’s when we did away with the gold-backing, and instead decided to let society decide how much one dollar meant. This is where inflation really began to rise. Because if it’s only society that’s determining how much that paper dollar in your hand or that number in your bank account is worth, then it can fluctuate wildly. That’s why banks were put in as well as monetary funds that would control and regulate the flow of money and ensure that things didn’t spiral out of control. Much like the monopoly busting that was done in the past, it was up to the government to ensure that assets were equally diversified and distributed to ensure the mass success of the nation instead of just a few.

Now we skip forward to today, where money is seen almost as a demi-god. We all read and look at stories about how to amass your own personal wealth. And what is all this personal wealth used for? To make your own life better. It’s no longer about looking after others, it’s about making sure your own bowl is full to overflowing. Now don’t get me wrong, money is a very necessary part of life. We are inextricably tied to it now. We need money to guarantee that we have shelter and transportation and food. But there’s a base level of living that will guarantee that you won’t be daily suffering. And many Americans live faaaar beyond that level. No one needs an iphone or a Netflix subscription or to eat out every other day. Yet we pursue money to buy those things. As if they’re necessities for our own flagging sense of morality and self. Money can be a powerful tool to raise the lower class, build equality, and ensure that no one dies of starvation ever again. But time and again we as a society look at money as a means of personal gain, not as a societal ladder to help us all up.

At the end of the day, money just speaks to the selfish part of America. It’s a country rooted in selfishness. Yeah we had a founding fathership that established a nation based on fighting “taxation without representation”. But in reality that was a thinly veiled way of saying “I don’t like what’s happening here. Someone is taking something that’s mine. I’ve got all these people that agree with me. Let’s secede.” While King George’s methodology were undoubtedly questionable, our own reaction was markedly juvenile. An in the process of creating a country based on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, we also chose to ignore slavery and civil rights as well as women’s rights for the better half of our history. So in reality were we doing what was universally right? Or were we just fighting for our own selfish reasons?

And don’t hand me all that bullshit about “we don’t know if the new nation could have taken it”. Britain abolished slavery long before America did so it’s obvious that the human condition will adjust to any situation if the necessity proves strong enough. It’s an old excuse that has no place in this modern time. We must evolve from our base desires and begin to see things in new, modern ways.