Money is literally any good that in a given time and place is nearly universally accepted in exchange for other goods.
There are a variety of factors which differentiates goods that make good money from goods that make poor money, and those factors have historically guided what's been used as money.
Money is also distinct from, although related to currency.
Dylan Ross I see. So, I work work and get paid 10 dollars. You work work and get paid 20 dollars. Why is that?
Nenad Ristic Why does it need to be mutually agreed upon? Do you believe the value of money is always agreed upon by those who use it? Is such agreement willing? Can you have agreement that is forced?
Example of a forced agreement: Tony: Take this money in exchange for your labor, or else I will karate chop you! Nenad: But ... I don't want to exchange my labor in exchange for money. I'd rather collectively use my labor for the betterment of others! Tony: I don't care. Comply, or you will have no place to sleep, no food to eat, and no one will speak to you. Nenad: I agree to your bargain, devil.
That's part of it. Labor for pay is a transaction between two parties, and the other party must also agree with the value. It's still an exchange for equivalent value.
Party of me wants to answer flippantly that woman's labor is approximately 20% less valuable (I've got statistics to prove it!).
My serious answer: The thing is though that money is an approximation of value. If I buy a loaf of bread, and you use a coupon to save 20% we both still have identical loaves, but that doesn't make the labor I put in to earn the money worth more than your labor.
Money is: A necessary evil and a convenient fiction. It means I don't have to walk home with a bushel of chickens every two weeks, and then spend a huge amount of time trading those chickens for things I actually need.
William Nichols other than to point to 1 Timothy 6:10, probably not well. It was simply the first thing that came to my mind.
But I'll give it a stab. Money in and of itself is a cultural tool, like the scientific method or the wheel or the automated spreadsheet or marriage. It eases the costs (in terms of labor, annoyance, etc.) of transactions of goods and services between people. Because of this, it also represents a store of convertible wealth, because money not spent now is money that could be spent later.
Because money is a tool, it has no intrinsic moral or ethical weight. But money is used to express the morals and ethics of the society and its members, because transactions of goods and services are morally/ethically weighted.
Therefore, Paul doesn't say money is the root, it is the love of money. When one grows to love money itself, or the store of wealth it represents, more than their neighbors, friends, strangers, and (because this is a theological discussion) God, one is indulging in the vice of greed. Or, as it says in verse 9 "those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." (NIV)
A clarification: I do believe that tools, all tools, have no moral or ethical weight. However, depending on the system of morality/ethics one ascribes to, there may literally be no appropriate use of a particular tool and therefore it is worthless (I.e. a torturer's implements, a hydrogen bomb).
Dylan Ross You said that money is an equivalent exchange; ie, if i labor and am paid $20, then my labor must be worth $20. If the same labor -- with the same results -- are done by women, then they are (probably) paid less. It would same to follow that their labor is worth less.
Hans Messersmith That's a really interesting point in there, and a discussion I'd love to have!
Namely, you say that tools have no ethical weight. Maybe this is just phrasing, but I'd say they have no ethical value -- ie, a screwdriver or an h-bomb is neither good nor evil, and it is the using that makes it so.
I'm not sure I'd agree that some tools can only be used for evil. We used trident missiles and B-52s by threatening second strike. That is a use, if not the most obvious one.
I'd agree that some uses of tools are always evil, like launching H-bombs.
Dylan Ross And as an observant thinks I may have overlooked it: by the definition given above, this is absolutely agreed to, in the same sense that the not beaten up example is "agreed to".
By my definition, money exists as a means of exchange, and the amount of money received in a transaction depends on what the individuals in it have agreed to.
I should add: If something gets exchanged primarily in the hope of exchanging it for other things at a later stage, and has little or no utility in itself, we can call it money in the general sense. In common usage, the term money reflects such unit, son long as they get endorsed by the ruling government of the area where the transaction takes place.
I can think of a couple of uses of launching H-Bombs that I would not consider evil, perhaps as part of a spaceship power-plant, or possibly to deflect an asteroid headed for Earth.
Going by the definitions given by this group of people, exploitation is still being chosen by the victim.
Perhaps the definitions this group gave should be somewhat revised. I'm happy to find a definition of money that doesn't result in this, but haven't yet.
William Nichols I used "weight" instead of "value" to avoid the potential for confusing the monetary value of something, which is simply the price some market/process has assigned it, and the moral/ethical value ("weight") which is assigned to it by some system of morality/ethics. Value is really a better word, but I avoided it to avoid confusion. The price/monetary value paid for X versus Y often has little to nothing to do with the moral equivalency/value in a particular value system.
I think that you have made a bit of a leap. Often the victim gets only a very limited set of options to choose from. They choose their exploitation only in the sense that they believe that resisting it would lead to something even worse than getting exploited
Nenad Ristic Your position was that entering into a contract to exchange labor in exchange for money, on the promise of a karate chop if you do not is still an agreement.
Maybe money is not a measure of value, but rather a measure of societal force, deprivation, and threat of violence (or, rather, an inverse measure ... money is a token of an imperfect statistical bulwark against societal force and violence, and at higher levels the right to redirect same against those less well betokened).
Then, of course, the observation that women are given less promise of respite against societal violence than their male counterparts, for the same contributions to society, would be of a piece with other observations about our society.
Tony Lower-Basch That's very similar to what I answered when you had a similar question. I feel like you eventually responded with oughts rather than ares, and I couldn't well defend money as a moral concept. At least, not how implemented.
Well, yes, but you haven't asked anyone to morally justify it ... and this answer fits the facts so much better than the "exchange of value" answer.
The exchange of value answer makes a better moral case, of course. Indeed, if I were constructing a "close enough" narrative of what money is, with the intent of convincing people that it was a morally praiseworthy social device, that's the aspirational fiction I would choose.
well, do you feel comfortable morally defending money as societal force?
That is: Is there a moral ought for why, say, an african-american woman whose been on jeopardy and is smarter than me ought make less money than a white guy with none of those qualifications?
Nenad Ristic Oh, sure. And it was said that such deals are still an agreement based on value. So, by that definition, it seems like the work done by women is worth less than the work done by men.
1) Coercion makes any "agreement" non-consensual, right? That is, I cannot see how agreeing to do something otherwise I will get karate-chopped is a consensual agreement.
2) An agreement made while one person is in a distressed or subservient position is also not fully consensual, right? If a servant relies upon my good word to ensure future happiness (through a letter of reference, say), they have to accept my terms even when I don't apply overt coercion. Every order I give, no matter how kindly phrased, has an implied "or you won't get a reference" after it.
You seem to insist on a universal definition of worth, and seem to imply that money provides a good measure of it. I agree that women, on average, receive less money then men for the same kind of work. I did not try imply an moral value with my use of "agree"
Hans Messersmith by that argument, you can define any agreement as non-consensual "If you do not give me $500, I will not give you an iPhone". In both cases refusing to do what the other person wants leads to undesirable consequences, although the degree differs a lot.
Nenad Ristic: So ... the whole idea of consent should be discarded, as regards money? Or do you have a definition that actually underpins what you're saying?
Because, really, picking holes in how other people pick holes in your argument is not as strong as mending your holes.
Your term "agreement" seems to be a semantic null: Any exchange that happens is one that people agree to, because consent is a non-issue.
So if I beat William unconscious, and take all his money ... has he agreed to that exchange?
Nenad Ristic are you saying that not given an iphone for less than $500 is coercion? I think your understanding of coercion is strange and far too overly broad if so. "Undesireable" consequences is not the same thing as coerced consequences.
That being said, it is not a binary. A person is not either in a coerced state vs. non-coerced state. Coercion comes in many forms and strengths, and consent can be joyful to grudging. For example...
* Must i absolutely have that iphone or I will lose my job? * Does an iphone provide some service to me I absolutely must access for my well-being?
if either of those is true, then yeah, maybe me agreeing to pay $500 for that iphone isn't entirely consensual.
Hans Messersmith Actually I just pointed out the logical consequence of your argument. How do you define the line between the two types of consequences (undesirable vs. coerced)?
Tony Lower-Basch Since William has not consented to getting knocked unconscious, that makes you knocking him unconscious non-consensual, and not something he agreed to. Anything you do to him after knocking him out I would also consider non-consensual, unless William had agreed to it before-hand.
IF you threaten William with knocking him unconscious unless he gives you his money, and he does give you his money, I would consider that as an agreement, although under duress.
I have not really presented any arguments, merely suggested a definition.
Nenad Ristic your calling it a logical consequence does not make it so, sorry.
Namely, as long as there is agreement as to what constitutes coercion, distress, subservience, etc, then the logical outcome of my argument is that some agreements are consensual, some are not, and the remainder are in the grey area in between. We will certainly not "define any agreement as non-consensual." We only define as non-consensual those agreements that are coerced, made under duress, etc.
For example, we both agree that Tony threatening William with unconsciousness means that William's acceptance of the deal is non-consensual according to your last comment. I think deciding whether to call this an "agreement" or not seems like a distraction. It is obviously an agreement, because William is (I think) still conscious.
William Nichols going back to your comment above, you said: "And it was said that such deals are still an agreement based on value. So, by that definition, it seems like the work done by women is worth less than the work done by men."
If you mean monetary value, then this statement is trivially true, because monetary value is literally the price someone is paying. This is, I would say, exactly the problem; our society is structured such that women's labor, in general, has less monetary value then men's labor. Women are in essence coerced into accepting this situation in all kinds of ways, from simply not knowing how little they are being paid compared to men, to barriers in education and training, to sexism (conscious/unconscious) in the hiring process, to being held more responsible by the culture for child-rearing, etc.
In capitalist amurica one might be considered insane for suggesting such a thing, but the notion of ownership is inherently problematic.
Money is an illusion that represents variously: Labor, value, worth, success (non-exhaustive list). It does not do so perfectly, nor are the things it represents inherently utile, moral or equal.
Basically Money = Problems. However it can also solve some problems.
To come at it from another angle, Money is blue. To some people, or some situations that may be #0000FF ... but #3333EE is pretty much also blue... #66ccff well.. then you're going to start arguing over whether indigo is blue.
William Nichols I would say human nature results in compulsory agreements, not money. "I will knock you unconscious unless you trade your five chickens for my pocket knife" requires no money at all. It simply requires property rights. In fact, not even property rights so much as rights to your own labor. "I will knock you unconscious unless you dig this hole for me" and similar compulsory "agreements" have been going on since LONG before the advent of money.
Money eases the "costs" of transactions neutrally I would argue. Therefore, it eases the costs of compulsory agreements as well as virtuous ones.
For example, money greatly eases the provision of charity, especially to people that are distant from you. If I give you a horse, you have a horse; hopefully that is what you needed. If I give you enough money to buy a horse, you could still have the horse. Or a horse's equivalent in food. Or some books. Or whatever. I have given you the power to meet your needs as you see fit, within the amount I have given you. Moreover, it is far, far easier for me to send you money if you live far away fro me than it is to send you a horse.
Yanni Cooper I also agree about the problematic idea of ownership. Like money, ownership only exists as a mutually-agreed on fiction, although far more people agree with it.
So, a related discussion (which I have had before): How do you define ownership?
And on that note, thanks to everyone involved in this discussion for keeping it civil, interesting and challenging. A hard balance to achieve.
A thing that, when loved, is the root of many kinds of evil. :-)
ReplyDeleteIs that a literal question?
ReplyDeleteMoney is literally any good that in a given time and place is nearly universally accepted in exchange for other goods.
There are a variety of factors which differentiates goods that make good money from goods that make poor money, and those factors have historically guided what's been used as money.
Money is also distinct from, although related to currency.
Transferable IOUs
ReplyDeleteHans Messersmith Maybe so! Can you discuss why?
ReplyDeleteDylan Ross And what's an IOU?
It's something of value which may be exchanged for something else of value at a later date.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have a mutually-agreed on standard for exchanging goods that uses a set of tokens as an intermediary, we call that intermediary token money.
ReplyDeleteDylan Ross I see. So, I work work and get paid 10 dollars. You work work and get paid 20 dollars. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteNenad Ristic Why does it need to be mutually agreed upon? Do you believe the value of money is always agreed upon by those who use it? Is such agreement willing? Can you have agreement that is forced?
I use "agree" in a wider sense. While you can chose to completely exit the current monetary system, doing so will lead to a lot of difficulty.
ReplyDeleteWhat you mean by a forced agreement?
Maybe I produced twice as much as you.
ReplyDeleteExample of a forced agreement:
ReplyDeleteTony: Take this money in exchange for your labor, or else I will karate chop you!
Nenad: But ... I don't want to exchange my labor in exchange for money. I'd rather collectively use my labor for the betterment of others!
Tony: I don't care. Comply, or you will have no place to sleep, no food to eat, and no one will speak to you.
Nenad: I agree to your bargain, devil.
Dylan Ross OHHH, so the things are exchange for things of equivalent value? Are you saying that?
ReplyDeleteDylan Ross Oh, interesting!
ReplyDeleteSo, if I understand you correctly:
1. When I sell my labor, what I receive in recompense is near enough equivalent to what I put in?
2. Two people with different incomes produce different amounts of goods?
3. Two people with the same incomes produce the same amounts of goods?
Not necessarily. People value may value their labor differently based on available alternatives.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see. So my labor is valuable to me and I receive recompense based upon how valuable it is to me? Is that right?
ReplyDeleteI would consider your example an agreement under my definition of money. (Not the nicest agreement, but one nevertheless).
ReplyDeleteThat's part of it. Labor for pay is a transaction between two parties, and the other party must also agree with the value. It's still an exchange for equivalent value.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nenad Ristic, there is value in not being karate chopped.
ReplyDeleteI see.
ReplyDeleteSo, to be clear to the point: a woman's labor is less valuable than a mans?
No.
ReplyDeleteHuh. It seemed to fit the definition. Would you like to revise the definition?
ReplyDeleteParty of me wants to answer flippantly that woman's labor is approximately 20% less valuable (I've got statistics to prove it!).
ReplyDeleteMy serious answer: The thing is though that money is an approximation of value. If I buy a loaf of bread, and you use a coupon to save 20% we both still have identical loaves, but that doesn't make the labor I put in to earn the money worth more than your labor.
Money is: A necessary evil and a convenient fiction. It means I don't have to walk home with a bushel of chickens every two weeks, and then spend a huge amount of time trading those chickens for things I actually need.
I hate money, but I do love spending it.
How does it fit the definition?
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols other than to point to 1 Timothy 6:10, probably not well. It was simply the first thing that came to my mind.
ReplyDeleteBut I'll give it a stab. Money in and of itself is a cultural tool, like the scientific method or the wheel or the automated spreadsheet or marriage. It eases the costs (in terms of labor, annoyance, etc.) of transactions of goods and services between people. Because of this, it also represents a store of convertible wealth, because money not spent now is money that could be spent later.
Because money is a tool, it has no intrinsic moral or ethical weight. But money is used to express the morals and ethics of the society and its members, because transactions of goods and services are morally/ethically weighted.
Therefore, Paul doesn't say money is the root, it is the love of money. When one grows to love money itself, or the store of wealth it represents, more than their neighbors, friends, strangers, and (because this is a theological discussion) God, one is indulging in the vice of greed. Or, as it says in verse 9 "those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." (NIV)
A clarification: I do believe that tools, all tools, have no moral or ethical weight. However, depending on the system of morality/ethics one ascribes to, there may literally be no appropriate use of a particular tool and therefore it is worthless (I.e. a torturer's implements, a hydrogen bomb).
ReplyDeleteDylan Ross You said that money is an equivalent exchange; ie, if i labor and am paid $20, then my labor must be worth $20. If the same labor -- with the same results -- are done by women, then they are (probably) paid less. It would same to follow that their labor is worth less.
ReplyDeleteNo? If not, please tell me what I've missed.
Hans Messersmith That's a really interesting point in there, and a discussion I'd love to have!
ReplyDeleteNamely, you say that tools have no ethical weight. Maybe this is just phrasing, but I'd say they have no ethical value -- ie, a screwdriver or an h-bomb is neither good nor evil, and it is the using that makes it so.
I'm not sure I'd agree that some tools can only be used for evil. We used trident missiles and B-52s by threatening second strike. That is a use, if not the most obvious one.
I'd agree that some uses of tools are always evil, like launching H-bombs.
Dylan Ross And as an observant thinks I may have overlooked it: by the definition given above, this is absolutely agreed to, in the same sense that the not beaten up example is "agreed to".
ReplyDeleteBy my definition, money exists as a means of exchange, and the amount of money received in a transaction depends on what the individuals in it have agreed to.
ReplyDeleteI should add:
ReplyDeleteIf something gets exchanged primarily in the hope of exchanging it for other things at a later stage, and has little or no utility in itself, we can call it money in the general sense. In common usage, the term money reflects such unit, son long as they get endorsed by the ruling government of the area where the transaction takes place.
I can think of a couple of uses of launching H-Bombs that I would not consider evil, perhaps as part of a spaceship power-plant, or possibly to deflect an asteroid headed for Earth.
ReplyDeleteTime
ReplyDeleteIt's because women's labor is being exploited due to an inefficient labor market created by centuries of sexism.
ReplyDeleteIf women's labor were actually worth less, than why would some employers choose to overpay women but not men by paying them both the same?
Threatening to beat someone up so they do what you want is also exploitation.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols, would you agree that women are largely exploited in the labor market?
ReplyDeleteGoing by the definitions given by this group of people, exploitation is still being chosen by the victim.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the definitions this group gave should be somewhat revised. I'm happy to find a definition of money that doesn't result in this, but haven't yet.
William Nichols I used "weight" instead of "value" to avoid the potential for confusing the monetary value of something, which is simply the price some market/process has assigned it, and the moral/ethical value ("weight") which is assigned to it by some system of morality/ethics. Value is really a better word, but I avoided it to avoid confusion. The price/monetary value paid for X versus Y often has little to nothing to do with the moral equivalency/value in a particular value system.
ReplyDeleteNenad Ristic, based on your comment about using h-bombs, you might find this interesting if you have never heard of it... en.wikipedia.org - Operation Plowshare - Wikipedia
ReplyDeleteI think that you have made a bit of a leap. Often the victim gets only a very limited set of options to choose from. They choose their exploitation only in the sense that they believe that resisting it would lead to something even worse than getting exploited
ReplyDeleteNenad Ristic Your position was that entering into a contract to exchange labor in exchange for money, on the promise of a karate chop if you do not is still an agreement.
ReplyDeleteHow is this different?
[ Hint: I don't think it is. ]
I wouldn't characterize it as the exploitation is still being chosen by the victim. Lower wages are being chosen as a result of systemic exploitation.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the issue is as much with the definition of money, ather it's the flaws in capitalism. But that is a discussion for another day.
Maybe money is not a measure of value, but rather a measure of societal force, deprivation, and threat of violence (or, rather, an inverse measure ... money is a token of an imperfect statistical bulwark against societal force and violence, and at higher levels the right to redirect same against those less well betokened).
ReplyDeleteThen, of course, the observation that women are given less promise of respite against societal violence than their male counterparts, for the same contributions to society, would be of a piece with other observations about our society.
Tony Lower-Basch That's very similar to what I answered when you had a similar question. I feel like you eventually responded with oughts rather than ares, and I couldn't well defend money as a moral concept. At least, not how implemented.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, but you haven't asked anyone to morally justify it ... and this answer fits the facts so much better than the "exchange of value" answer.
ReplyDeleteThe exchange of value answer makes a better moral case, of course. Indeed, if I were constructing a "close enough" narrative of what money is, with the intent of convincing people that it was a morally praiseworthy social device, that's the aspirational fiction I would choose.
well, do you feel comfortable morally defending money as societal force?
ReplyDeleteThat is: Is there a moral ought for why, say, an african-american woman whose been on jeopardy and is smarter than me ought make less money than a white guy with none of those qualifications?
[ Hint: I don't think so, but you know that. ]
I could do so partially, but we should probably take it to another thread, as it would get very deep into stuff that's of less general interest.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question upthread: I do not see a difference between the two, only a matter of degree. I would consider both exploitation.
ReplyDeletemoney is a convenient unit for measuring power
ReplyDeleteNenad Ristic Oh, sure. And it was said that such deals are still an agreement based on value. So, by that definition, it seems like the work done by women is worth less than the work done by men.
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something?
Two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Coercion makes any "agreement" non-consensual, right? That is, I cannot see how agreeing to do something otherwise I will get karate-chopped is a consensual agreement.
2) An agreement made while one person is in a distressed or subservient position is also not fully consensual, right? If a servant relies upon my good word to ensure future happiness (through a letter of reference, say), they have to accept my terms even when I don't apply overt coercion. Every order I give, no matter how kindly phrased, has an implied "or you won't get a reference" after it.
You seem to insist on a universal definition of worth, and seem to imply that money provides a good measure of it. I agree that women, on average, receive less money then men for the same kind of work. I did not try imply an moral value with my use of "agree"
ReplyDeleteHans Messersmith
by that argument, you can define any agreement as non-consensual "If you do not give me $500, I will not give you an iPhone". In both cases refusing to do what the other person wants leads to undesirable consequences, although the degree differs a lot.
Nenad Ristic: So ... the whole idea of consent should be discarded, as regards money? Or do you have a definition that actually underpins what you're saying?
ReplyDeleteBecause, really, picking holes in how other people pick holes in your argument is not as strong as mending your holes.
Your term "agreement" seems to be a semantic null: Any exchange that happens is one that people agree to, because consent is a non-issue.
So if I beat William unconscious, and take all his money ... has he agreed to that exchange?
::popcorn::
ReplyDeleteAlso, i do not consent to being beaten unconscious. Just getting that out there.
Oh, we'll see about that ... you didn't even ask what alternative I offered you.
ReplyDeleteNenad Ristic are you saying that not given an iphone for less than $500 is coercion? I think your understanding of coercion is strange and far too overly broad if so. "Undesireable" consequences is not the same thing as coerced consequences.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it is not a binary. A person is not either in a coerced state vs. non-coerced state. Coercion comes in many forms and strengths, and consent can be joyful to grudging. For example...
* Must i absolutely have that iphone or I will lose my job?
* Does an iphone provide some service to me I absolutely must access for my well-being?
if either of those is true, then yeah, maybe me agreeing to pay $500 for that iphone isn't entirely consensual.
Hans Messersmith Actually I just pointed out the logical consequence of your argument. How do you define the line between the two types of consequences (undesirable vs. coerced)?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Since William has not consented to getting knocked unconscious, that makes you knocking him unconscious non-consensual, and not something he agreed to. Anything you do to him after knocking him out I would also consider non-consensual, unless William had agreed to it before-hand.
IF you threaten William with knocking him unconscious unless he gives you his money, and he does give you his money, I would consider that as an agreement, although under duress.
I have not really presented any arguments, merely suggested a definition.
Nenad Ristic your calling it a logical consequence does not make it so, sorry.
ReplyDeleteNamely, as long as there is agreement as to what constitutes coercion, distress, subservience, etc, then the logical outcome of my argument is that some agreements are consensual, some are not, and the remainder are in the grey area in between. We will certainly not "define any agreement as non-consensual." We only define as non-consensual those agreements that are coerced, made under duress, etc.
For example, we both agree that Tony threatening William with unconsciousness means that William's acceptance of the deal is non-consensual according to your last comment. I think deciding whether to call this an "agreement" or not seems like a distraction. It is obviously an agreement, because William is (I think) still conscious.
William Nichols going back to your comment above, you said: "And it was said that such deals are still an agreement based on value. So, by that definition, it seems like the work done by women is worth less than the work done by men."
If you mean monetary value, then this statement is trivially true, because monetary value is literally the price someone is paying. This is, I would say, exactly the problem; our society is structured such that women's labor, in general, has less monetary value then men's labor. Women are in essence coerced into accepting this situation in all kinds of ways, from simply not knowing how little they are being paid compared to men, to barriers in education and training, to sexism (conscious/unconscious) in the hiring process, to being held more responsible by the culture for child-rearing, etc.
This has strayed a bit. The definitions of money as presented seem to result in badness, namely potentially compulsory agreements.
ReplyDeleteIs there another definition of money such that this does not happen? Or, is money inherently a problematic notion?
In capitalist amurica one might be considered insane for suggesting such a thing, but the notion of ownership is inherently problematic.
ReplyDeleteMoney is an illusion that represents variously: Labor, value, worth, success (non-exhaustive list). It does not do so perfectly, nor are the things it represents inherently utile, moral or equal.
Basically Money = Problems. However it can also solve some problems.
To come at it from another angle, Money is blue. To some people, or some situations that may be #0000FF ... but #3333EE is pretty much also blue... #66ccff well.. then you're going to start arguing over whether indigo is blue.
William Nichols I would say human nature results in compulsory agreements, not money. "I will knock you unconscious unless you trade your five chickens for my pocket knife" requires no money at all. It simply requires property rights. In fact, not even property rights so much as rights to your own labor. "I will knock you unconscious unless you dig this hole for me" and similar compulsory "agreements" have been going on since LONG before the advent of money.
ReplyDeleteMoney eases the "costs" of transactions neutrally I would argue. Therefore, it eases the costs of compulsory agreements as well as virtuous ones.
For example, money greatly eases the provision of charity, especially to people that are distant from you. If I give you a horse, you have a horse; hopefully that is what you needed. If I give you enough money to buy a horse, you could still have the horse. Or a horse's equivalent in food. Or some books. Or whatever. I have given you the power to meet your needs as you see fit, within the amount I have given you. Moreover, it is far, far easier for me to send you money if you live far away fro me than it is to send you a horse.
I agree with Hans Messersmith.
ReplyDeleteYanni Cooper I also agree about the problematic idea of ownership. Like money, ownership only exists as a mutually-agreed on fiction, although far more people agree with it.
So, a related discussion (which I have had before): How do you define ownership?
And on that note, thanks to everyone involved in this discussion for keeping it civil, interesting and challenging. A hard balance to achieve.